Guide to Making Amends in Addiction Recovery: Step 9 of AA

But as mentioned earlier, making amends isn’t just about saying sorry and acknowledging past mistakes. Engaging in the process of making amends serves several vital purposes in an individual’s recovery journey. Firstly, it allows the person in recovery to separate themselves from the disease of addiction, recognizing that their past actions were not a reflection of their actual values and character. Step 9 in AA (making amends) represents a vital component of addiction treatment, as do all of the 12 steps. They provide you with a roadmap to recovery and personal growth.

What’s the Difference between Making Amends and Offering an Apology?

This step ensures that you are grounded and clear about your intentions and the potential impact of your actions. Donating money, volunteering time, or providing care can serve as indirect amends when direct communication is not feasible. The key aspect of indirect amends is focusing on personal growth and changing harmful behaviors.

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My living amends to my mother is to be fully present in my life so I can be fully present in hers. Living amends look different for everyone, depending on the specific negative behavior patterns you have identified while working the 12 Steps. Determining the most impactful living amends will require a great deal of honesty. If you have taken these steps in recovery, please leave a comment! Trust the recovery process and believe in God to truly prosper! We believe everyone deserves access to accurate, unbiased information about mental health and recovery.

How Making Amends Positively Affects the Brain

Notice the words “right to resentment” and “underserved qualities” in there? It is about what we do despite that wrongdoing, “abandoning our right to resentment . . . “. Making amends does not undoing the wrongdoing, just as forgiveness doesn’t undo the wrongdoing.

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The only thing we can show people today is our love, commitment and patience. If we want to be forgiven, we have to be patient, because it may not come today, tomorrow or the next day. We likely promised to sober up in the past, only to revert to alcohol abuse or another drug of choice. Children see it all for what it is, not what we’ve promised. Children don’t need to hear about the disease of alcoholism or the Twelve Steps.

• Nonetheless, being accountable for your misdeeds is your goal.
• The more personalized your lifestyle changes are, the more they’re going to resonate and stick with you.
• Not all forgiveness has to be made in person or on the phone (voiced).
• The year prior to coming down here, I was isolating in my apartment because I have an autoimmune disorder and didn’t want to get Covid-19 (even though I was killing myself with alcohol).

The Application Process

And living amends definition Spock’s objective was how can he integrate with his human counterparts on the bridge and give the best that he had to offer. Cause you can see how the Enterprise just set pieces all over the soundstage and then there was Planet from Hell on stage nine. But it was great because one of the things that I really loved doing was trying to remember what scenes they were shooting at the time. Because I would wait for those episodes and go, Oh, yeah, I was there for that. Indirect amends is when you do not make a face-to-face confession of your wrongs against someone.

Application Process

More than an apology, it’s about making genuine amends—taking action to correct past mistakes without causing harm. Here, we explore Step 9, its goals, what is alcoholism possible outcomes, and effective language for making amends. Saying sorry isn’t enough—you have to take responsibility for your actions and feel genuine remorse over what you’ve done. Don’t invalidate the other’s feelings by saying something like “I’m sorry you feel that way” or making excuses about your mental state at the time. In detail, write everything you’ve done that caused them pain.

• These are territories hard to navigate, which is why you need some recovery time and a support network to help you.
• The donation doesn’t go straight to the scholarship recipient.
• This ensures we take accountability and make positive changes without causing additional harm in our recovery while making amends to such people we cannot make direct amends to.

Understanding AA Amends In The Twelve Steps

I have also joined up with a group of musicians who get together before meetings and play music. It’s been a really great experience to do that sober, with other sober people! I hope to continue getting pet sitting opportunities as well. I know I cannot fix all of the issues that came as a direct result of my drinking https://explorersnook.com/kid-cudi-doc-reveals-battles-with-depression-and/ but I have a short term plan to start making small financial/livings amends with help from my sponsor. I have a clear head, an open heart and a desire to live and I am so very grateful you chose to grant me this gift.

What Step in AA Is Making Amends?

• After all, I hadn’t hurt anyone (Step 8), so I didn’t need to make any amends (Step 9).
• Step nine, in particular, gets people to work through shame and discomfort as they meet people they’ve hurt face-to-face to apologize.
• All types of amends are good, but living amends are some of the best kinds you can make!
• Maybe they got sick of watching the addiction destroy us and our family.

Once all terms are agreed too, we will transfer the funds directly to the sober living facility. If the applicant receives a scholarship, we ask their sober living community to provide a weekly report on their progress. Explore the benefits of sober living in San Antonio with Eudaimonia Homes. Discover how our supportive environment can aid your recovery journey today. Again, in recovery, your words may not mean as much to some people as you wish they would. Understandably, some people may just need more time to learn how to trust you again.

Living Amends will not be funding scholarships during the months of July and August 2025. Book Jason for speaking engagements, events or appearances and let him bring the message of recovery & hope. Guilt and shame are the unnecessary chains that bind us to our past. By practicing these spiritual principles we can break those chains and achieve the freedom from our addiction that we have yearned for. Humility is the freedom from pride or arrogance and having the living amends quality or state of being humble.