by Earnie Larsen

"Made a list of all people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all"

There is a reason why Steps 8 and 9 are what they are. There is a reason why they come where they do in the order of the Steps. I want the men at the Salvation Army where I teach a class called "Insights in Recovery" to have sure understanding of what those reasons are. I feel when they do it gives them a better chance at long term and high quality recovery.

"Living in the solution" rather than "living in the problem" means living a life of true and deep connections with God, self and others. Staying connected is the key to lifelong recovery.

The first three Steps provide the foundation of recovery. They tell us there is no way a connected, spiritual life can be reached and maintained without "turning our life over to the care of the God of our understanding."Steps four and five tell us where to go after we've surrendered our lives to the care of our Higher Power. They tell us to go inside. They tell us our first task is not to convert others, get a college degree or become a national speaker. Steps four and five tell us to get serious about the character defects in our lives. They tell us to share "the exact nature" of those character defects with God, self and others.

The reason why the program tells us to go inside is because it is precisely those character defects that block us from reaching and living in the solution. Character defects are like vicious guard dogs that surround the "old Normal" of a recovering person's life forever keeping them forming the kind of connections that alone take us to the solution.

Steps six and seven again tell us to get serious about the "exact nature" of our wrongs. They tell us to work our programs well enough that we do indeed become "entirely willing" to have God remove those divots in our personality. Then Step seven says DO IT. Step seven says don't think about it or discuss it or argue about it. The Step says DO IT." Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." In other words, get rid of the guard dogs.

STEPS EIGHT and NINE

Takes us deeper into our own spirits. Steps 8 and 9 tell us to take an even deeper step into honesty with ourselves. Addictions flourish in all the lies an addict learns to live with and in. Lies fuel addiction. Two of the largest of those lies are: 1) "I didn't do it" and 2) "It's not my fault." Spirituality can never live in such poor soil.

So Step 8 tells us to start practicing the attitude of taking responsibility of all that we had done. It tells us we not only did harm to ourselves but that we need to take responsibility for all those other people we hurt in our active addiction. And then to not only own the harm we had done, but do something about it. Step 8 says we become willing to make amends to them all.

The Steps are all about practice. We become what we practice. Only in practicing spiritual values do we increase the spirituality of our lives – which IS the only solution to the problem of addiction.

I teach the program tells us to start practicing at least these four values in Step 8:

• Humility
• Positive Action
• Responsibility
• Honesty

These values and active addiction cannot exist in the same life. The dog that is fed is the dog that wins. A person cannot be seriously working Steps 8 and 9 and relapse.How does Step 8 lead us to the practice of these values?

MADE A LIST -Humility – humility is not the same as humiliation. Humility is truth. And the truth is our addiction has hurt a great many people. WE have hurt a great many people. Not the least of which is ourselves. But who likes (or even wants) to list the wreckage we caused as we went through life in causing the mess we did. Most of our men find their recovery has moved to a whole different level when they start making a list. Now it's personal. And personal goes directly to the heart. And it is from the heart that transformation happens. Which is what the Founders said is what recovery is all about.

OF ALL PEOPLE WE HAD HARMED -Positive Action - .Shame and guilt have ruined many a recovery. As well as resentments. The Big Book says resentments are the number one cause of relapse. Program tells us we must DO SOMETHING about what would drag us back into relapse.

Only doing is doing. Talking about making a list of all those we had harmed is not the same as making the list. Considering or thinking about making such a list isn't the same as doing it!

The Program doesn't ask us how we are feeling. The Program asks us how we are doing. Sometimes that is all there is left to do – move your muscles. Sometimes that means nothing more than making the coffee and sweeping the floor. And sometimes it means this hard, hard (but freeing) work Step 8 tells us to do.

Nothing frees us more from emotional tangles (like guilt and shame, fear and self-contempt) than DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Once we allow these and other powerful emotions to sit around in our heads without doing something about them we find they turn into true monsters. But once we make the move of making our list, facing the music, bringing into consciousness all the people we have harmed, as uncomfortable as doing so might be, we find a kind of stability and solid "square" to stand on we hadn't known for many years.

Only doing is doing.

AND BECAME WILLING – responsibility – Give an addict (before recovery) any chance at all to escape responsibility and they will take it every time. Before recovery the addict is only too willing to lie, cheat, quit and run. Responsibility is the last thing an alcoholic/addict is interested in. So the 8th Step says – stand up, face the wreckage of the past, take responsibility for what was done. The 8th Step is a call to move beyond denial and delusion. It says we are to "become willing" to do the work in front of us. And a big part of that work is getting honest and serious about our responsibility to face up to what was. Until we free ourselves from "what was" we are not able to move on to "what is." If we won't let go of the past the past will not let go of us. And we cannot let go of the past unless we "become willing" to call by name all those we have hurt, including ourselves.

TO MAKE AMENDS TO THEM ALL – honesty – a dear man named Conrad in one of our classes said, "We ain't called to be no painted up garbage cans." He was talking about not just looking good but being good. Conrad was talking about getting to the inside of who we are and dealing with what we find inside. In other words – practicing honesty.

God can't heal what we won't own. That is why Step 8 is so important. Once we own the damage we have done and the people we have hurt the way for the God of our Understanding to enter and do His thing, is thrown open.

LET IT BEGIN WITH ME

I've found, at least with the men I am privileged to work with, that the hardest amends for many is the amends to self. Imagine a large room with a hundred men filling it. Imagine them all having the list suggested in Step 8 of all the people they had wronged. Now imagine they are told to share with the man next to them the name at the top of their list. Name the one you most need to make amends to, they are told.

Seldom is the name of that person their own. Yet recovery is all about moving from the lie to the truth. It is about gradually replacing the heaping mounds of self-contempt with self-compassion.Once that point is made with our men, that they MUST begin to see and think of themselves in new terms, the rubber truly hits the highway. And that's a good thing.