“One morning he took the bull by the horns and set out to tell those he feared what his trouble had been. He found himself surprisingly well received, and learned that many knew of his drinking. Stepping into his car, he made the rounds of people he had hurt. He trembled as he went about, for this might mean ruin, particularly to a person in his line of business.
“At midnight he came home exhausted, but very happy. He has not had a drink since. As we shall see, he now means a great deal to his community, and the major liabilities of thirty years of hard drinking have been repaired in four.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 156
Imagine living life freely, never having to look over your shoulder or having to worry about answering the phone. Imagine showing up at a work function and running into people you haven’t seen for years, people who saw you drunk, and not having to run and hide in shame to avoid further humiliation. Imagine sitting at a celebratory dinner table with family without any resentment either coming at you or from you.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, we no longer have to imagine these things. Once we have completed our Ninth Step amends, we can experience all that this world has to offer with no more guilt and no more shame. That is freedom. Freedom from the oppression of my past.
Having gone over our Eighth Step list with our sponsor, we pocket our pride and go to it. This is what Dr. Bob did. He was tired of relapsing. He simply couldn’t put the bottle down, even after he met Bill Wilson and fully understood what caused his disease: a mental obsession and a physical craving. But Dr. Bob, someone who prided himself on his spirituality, could not stay sober. Having been a member of the Oxford Group even before meeting Bill, he knew about righting past wrongs. “Making restitution to those one has harmed” was actually one of their six steps.
Dr. Bob went around the entire city of Akron making direct amends. He came home at midnight exhausted and free. This is not AA folklore: this is our experience. Until Bob was willing to make direct amends to all of those he had harmed, he knew that he would never stop drinking. That date, June 10, 1935, marks the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was not when Bill met Bob. It was not when Bill finally got sober at Towns Hospital. It was not when the first meeting started. It was not when Bill almost drank in the Mayflower Hotel bar and instead picked up the phone. It was not when Bill and the first one hundred wrote the Big Book. No. Alcoholics Anonymous’ own sober anniversary is marked by the day Dr. Bob finally made all of his direct amends.
Why, then, do so many members of AA balk at Step Nine? Well, making amends is scary and uncomfortable. It is work. It takes time and leveling of pride. We are a self-centered and undisciplined people. And we like the ease and comfort of our meetings. Step work is just that: work.
With me, while I knew I had harmed people and felt this incredible guilt and shame when I first walked into AA, my emotions began to even out after I was sober a couple of months. I started feeling comfortable in my own skin again. I lost that sense of desperation to make right my wrongs. If I am feeling okay, why should I bother to work the Twelve Steps, especially Nine? The answer is that I did not feel desperate at all. In fact, I had so much fun in AA that all I did was fellowship for the first 90 days. Sure, I had a sponsor (2 different sponsors during this time, in fact), but neither of them required me to do any work at all. I had meeting sobriety.
And then at 90 days the relief stopped. Once again I was faced with me and feeling very desperate. I got a new sponsor thanks to another member who insisted I do so. She would not let me get away with doing no work. And as soon as I started doing the work, I started to feel better again. She would always tell me, “The relief comes in doing the steps. Not in finishing, but as you do the work.”
I was pretty desperate at this point and spent the next several months knee-deep in step work. My Ninth Step amends, both financial and personal, were completed by the time I was 14 months sober. During the next several years, I also got to make amends to former colleagues and family members that were not on my original list. The power of Step Nine has really come alive for me and kept me willing to practice all parts of my program. I have stayed close to God, the fellowship, and my sponsor because the amends process was just too scary without this support.
My prayer for you is that you will give yourself a real chance at freedom. Whether just beginning this process or with years of sobriety with a nagging amends that still needs to be made, God will also grant you freedom in your willingness to continue. In my experience, this is the step that can block an alcoholic from achieving long-term sobriety. My past will always come back to haunt me until I can look and take care of all of the harms I have caused.