Step 9: Made Amends

Step 9 exemplifies the 12 Steps’ focus on action as the complement to mostly contemplation (in the previous steps) and applies to all of us on the spiritual path, whether identifying specifically as addicts or just we humans who are more generally addicted to (the illusion of) control: “The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.” (AA, p83)

Making amends to those people we’ve harmed in our lives isn’t easy, to say the least. In fact, the famous “9th Step Prayer” begins “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through…” (AA, p83), and confirms the fact that we must – first in ourselves – stake much pain, as we seek to make right the pain we have caused others. As Bill Wilson puts it, “the readiness to take the full consequences of our past acts, and to take responsibility for the well-being of others at the same time, is the very spirit of Step Nine.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p87)

The final result of this painstaking work is, ultimately, all about freedom. As Richard Rohr suggests: “Step 9 is telling us how to use skillful means to both protect our own humanity and to liberate the humanity of others.” (Breathing Underwater, p77)

But before those results, let’s take a closer look at those actions: “when dealing with making amends we have to make a clear distinction between authentic amends-making and apologizing, and between apologizing and asking for forgiveness.” (Rami Shapiro, Recovery–The Sacred Art, p128). The first and perhaps most important action of making authentic amends to those we’ve harmed is to change our actions, our unskillful behaviors. That is, the way we’ve been living that has caused such harm. In program, we call this “living amends,” which is the rock upon which any subsequent apology or asking of forgiveness that follows must be built … especially in those instances in which we can’t directly do this with someone we’ve harmed because “when to do so would injure them or others.”

For those people we can and should make direct amends to, however, one helpful text on the subject of apology and forgiveness is “The Book of Forgiving” by Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho Tutu. In the 4-part process, they suggest first “Admitting the Wrong”: stating the facts, acknowledging that it was wrong and we’ve hurt them, and not justifying or excusing our actions (p175). Second, “Witnessing the Anguish and Apologizing”: “witnessing” by deeply listening to and acknowledging the harm you’ve caused. (or as Shapiro puts it, “Listening, not speaking, is the real work of Step Nine.” Recovery, p129) Then “apologizing” by saying the three simple words “I am sorry.” With “healing in the very utterance” … “we may have to say them many times before they are believed. What is important is that we are courageous enough to say them, vulnerable enough to mean them, and humble enough to repeat them as many times as necessary.” (p180). Third, “Asking for Forgiveness,” including assuring no further harm and even offering restitution (p183). Shapiro on this topic again makes a good point: “While saying ‘I’m sorry’ gives you power over the other person, […] when we ask for forgiveness, we admit that we are powerless. We cannot forgive ourselves [for harm done to others]; we need the other to offer forgiveness to us.” But of course, paradoxically, “receiving another’s forgiveness isn’t the goal of Step Nine; asking for that forgiveness is what matters. When we ask, we help restore the other’s self-worth.” (Recovery, p135-136) In the fourth and final step in asking for forgiveness, Tutu describes either “Renewing or Releasing the Relationship.” The sad reality may be, as Shapiro frames it: “If some of the people we have harmed choose to hold onto their pain, if they choose to bear a grudge even in the face of our sincere request for forgiveness, then we are free from the burden of the wrong, and the other is left carrying it alone. But when forgiveness is genuinely beseeched and genuinely bestowed, the burden is lifted from everyone.” (Recovery, p137)

So, through the active, painstaking “means” – the skillful actions of amends, apology and forgiveness – we gratefully find ourselves arriving at the “ends.” The results. Serendipitously surrounding us with the gratuitous grace of “lifted burdens” …

As Gerald May in “Addiction and Grace” puts it:

It is a question of aligning one’s intention with the God within and with us, through love and in grace. To make the alignment possible, Jesus proclaimed a message of radical forgiveness, not only forgiveness of humanity by God, but also forgiveness of one another by people. In this radical forgiveness, it is even possible to be freed of attachment to one’s own guilt for or justification of the wounds one has inflicted upon others. (p114)

Kurtz and Ketchum in “The Spirituality of Imperfection” call it a:

Profound, internal transformation involving two discoveries. The first discovery is that we have been forgiven, which somehow makes possible the second discovery: that we already have forgiven. Uniting these experiences is the discovery of commonality – the sense of having rejoined the human community. (p218)

With the final word on “results” given to the AA “Blue” book and the end of that same 9th Step Prayer:

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. […] Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. (p84)

So! If you thought Step 9 was hard (but, eventually, joyous😊) work, next month, we continue working with the maintenance Steps of 10-12, starting in 10 with the lifelong journey of promptly admitting when we’re wrong!