4 Ways to Make Amends in Recovery
If you’re untrustworthy and unreliable, come to terms with those characteristics of yours. Figure out ways to improve upon them, and tell your loved ones what you’re working on to help you improve. Being helpful toward others can mean lending a hand to friends and family who need help moving, checking in on elderly parents, or offering to babysit their nieces and nephews for a parent’s night out.
Be generous with your time.
- Your ‘living amends’ is living in a way that that acknowledges the previous mistake by consistently living in a way that doesn’t repeat it or compensates for it.
- We let emotions and/or unconscious baggage dictate our words or actions, and in the process, sometimes cause people we love, care about, or respect pain.
- When making direct amends, it is usually best to do so after a sustained period of sobriety and while in a calm state of mind.
- If he specifically asks for my opinion, which he doesn’t, I will give it.
As a result, the opportunity is lost to make things right if that person dies before they can apologize. Our actions are an indication of our values and our character as a person. Suddenly your spinning around things you feel guilty for. Maybe it is a fight you always thought you had time to resolve. Perhaps it is something you said or did while they were ill. Now, whether it is an apology, a want for forgiveness, or an amends, that person isn’t here and it makes it hard to imagine any of those things are possible.
- We will meet you wherever you are on your journey and determine the best treatment plan for you from our full continuum of care.
- It’s possible to be too early in the healing journey to start making amends.
- Essentially, don’t make promises that you can’t keep and do everything you can to live up to the promises you do make.
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- It is about what we do despite that wrongdoing, “abandoning our right to resentment . . . “.
- A full continuum of care treating addiction and mental health through an evidence-based approach, relapse prevention, and holistic healing with beach activities.
- Whenever possible, a direct amend is made face-to-face rather than over the phone or by asking someone else to apologize on your behalf.
- It arises when our hearts yearn to relieve their suffering or when we dedicate ourselves to not causing further suffering.
These changes in behavior help toward living amends the goal of reestablishing relationships or making them stronger. These promises are often the most difficult to keep because addiction plays a decisive role in a person’s ability to live up to their promises. Their parent may feel more pain for their addicted child’s inability to get sober than the material items lost due to the thefts. As we intentionally take responsibility for our actions, the harsh grip of self-aversion loosens, and we come home to a sense of connectedness, peace, and ease. This healing is very close to the Jewish process of atonement. By atoning for our errors, we make possible reconciliation–with God, with the injured other, and with our own heart and being.
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Mutual Aid, peer led support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous guide members to work through these steps to maintain sobriety and help others. An apology is expressing regret or saying sorry for causing harm to someone. Amends often include apologies, but they go beyond words. Making an amend means taking accountability and action to repair any damages done.
Making living amends primarily benefits you and not the people you’ve wronged in the past. It’s about making positive changes within yourself so that you don’t repeat old patterns of behavior that led to your broken relationships in the first place. The changes that occur due to your efforts positively affect your commitment to becoming a better friend, child, parent, or person all around.
Don’t settle for an apology.
- In Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), making amends is considered a crucial component of long-term recovery.
- Step Nine can leave you emotionally exhausted; it’s a difficult step to navigate.
- However, some may be tempted to take this step too quickly with the primary goal of making themselves feel better fast, avoiding uncomfortable feelings that come up when examining negative behaviors.
- Like the definition says, amends is something we do to make up for something we feel guilty for.
You can also turn to AA’s Big Book and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (the 12 & 12) for guidance specific to Step 8. It’s important to have a plan in place before we reach out. We can’t know for certain how another person will respond—or even how the interaction might affect us emotionally. So be sure to talk with your sponsor and/or support group about your plan in the event that you need support.
If possible, schedule a time to speak with them in advance to prepare for the conversation. Cake offers its users do-it-yourself online forms to complete their own wills and generalized educational content about wills. We are not attorneys and are not providing you with legal advice.