Selective Vision for Step 8

I've been to several meetings this week on the topic of  Step 8: "Made a list of persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

I find it interesting how many people seem to see this as another way to look at what the alcoholic has done to damage us. That's not what this Step asks us to do. We aren't  making lists of all the people, including ourselves, harmed by the alcoholic, we are taking a clear and careful look at our own character defects, and how those have caused pain, grief, sorrow and trouble to the people in our lives.

It wasn't until I was willing to admit that I could be a jerk, that I began to get much from this program. As long as I was still fixated upon what the alcoholic had done, was doing, might be about to do, my focus was skewed.

I don't attempt to suggest that we haven't been harmed in this alcoholic relationship, one is always getting toes snipped off and bits gouged out when we love an alcoholic, it's the nature of their disease, of the inflated sense of self, and overweening ego, which accompanies the other symptoms.

But we become equally as self-absorbed in our confusion and our pain, "irritable and unreasonable without knowing it." That's why we need a sponsor, because when we start out on this journey, our defenses will have us insist that we have no character defects, that we don't need to make a list, that we haven't harmed anyone. Over the years that I've been in this program, I've seen this happen time and again - someone relatively new insisting that they don't like this character defect stuff because it sounds too punitive, or they havn't done anything compared to the alcoholic's crimes against the world, or just a general sense of outrage when it's suggested to them that they learn to focus on their own faults.

 I've been that person, wanting to blame another for all my unhappiness. It wasn't until I became more willing to sit down and have a good hard look at myself that I began to find change in this program. But that requires some beating down of our own egos, and open minds with regard to who our sponsor sees
when they look at us.

Making A List, And Why A Sponsor Is A Good Thing.

Step 8 reads:

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

With reference to some of the people on my list, that willingness was absent. I put them on the list, but that's where it ended; willingness to make an amend to them was in the category of "Not bleeding likely."

This unwillingness distressed me, and I began the old dance of bashing myself for not feeling the way I thought I should. And/or the way I imagined other people thought I should. Being the head case I am was, I slowly became more and more obsessed with this perceived lack in my character, until it was blown completely out of proportion in my life, and began to block the light. That lack was all I could see, when my sponsor and I sat down to work the Steps together.

Wise woman that she was, she wondered aloud if it were possible that this new and crazed obsession of mine was a way to concentrate upon something which would keep me hung up on Step 8, so I didn't have to take the next inevitable step in the process - working Step 9 -  "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

I was gobsmacked. (She did that to me a lot - reached in and picked out what was keeping me stuck, and said "Hmm, what's this, I wonder?"  Maddening woman.) I went home convinced that she was mistaken, but woke up the next morning, thought about it, and began to laugh; it was so perfectly an avoidance mechanism, and I had been so completely oblivious. When next we spoke, I explained that I'd decided to put that aside, and just get on with it, praying to be granted willingness, rather than trying to make it up out of whole cloth myself.

Letting go of that allowed me to proceed, with the inevitable positive result.

For me, a sponsor does for me what I occasionally cannot do for myself, and that is: see me with enough clarity to figure out just what little game I'm playing here, while loudly protesting my innocence. Self-deception can keep me stuck in old ways of thought and behavior. It can allow me to justify, and rationalise.

There are aspects of our own characters, which hide as behind a curtain, opaque only to our own gaze; anyone else can see through it perfectly well. That just seems to be how we are made.

I am reminded of a cat we once had, who was a holy terror for leaping out from concealed places to scare the living daylights out of us. In the laundry room, we kept a towel hanging over the sink next to the dryer. This cat would stand on the dryer, and stick his head behind the towel. He believed that because he then couldn't see us, we also couldn't see him. He'd stand there, head concealed, big black fluffy body on the gleaming white of the dryer, then pop his head out with an air of "Gotcha!"

If we didn't pretend to have been startled, he'd do that cat thing of immediately beginning to groom a paw, stopping to look at us with disdain as if to say "Oh, are you in here? I hadn't noticed."

After a while of working the Steps with my sponsor, I began to see similarities between our thinking, me and the cat. We were both under the impression that we were hiding successfully.

When willingness is beyond my ability to produce, I can pray to be granted some. But first, I have to truly want it, and not being playing one of those games of claiming I want it, while doing everything in my power to put obstacles in my own way.

A Meeting In The City.

I went to an Al-Anon meeting while I was in the city; I like to do this, I always seem to come away with an altered perspective, from hearing new viewpoints and ways to work the program. I've been to this particular meeting several times in the past, and found it very different from my home group. It's a large meeting, and there's always lots of humour.

The topic was Step 8. I found it interesting to listen to people talk about how they'd managed to work their way into that state of mind described as "became willing to make amends to them all."

One woman spoke about how she started her list with quite a few people in the "when hell freezes over will I make amends" column, but as she progressed in her recovery, other people seemed to become so much more reasonable.

I also try, when I go down to the city, to meet and have coffee with an old friend. He's been in AA about 5 years longer than I've been in Al-Anon, and I love to see him healthy and happy and doing well - I knew him when he was drinking. He's a testament to the miracle of 12-Step, and is quite vocal on the subject.

At one point on the divided island highway, as we were all barrelling along at high speed, I found myself wondering how many of the drivers were trying to text while driving - makes my hair stand on end to imagine that possibility.

I'm grateful for my life, and as always, happy to be home again.

Step Eight.

"Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all."
In this Step, I am being asked to be honest with myself about the harm that I have done in my life, and to work towards achieving willingness to make amends. When I did this for the first time, my list was exhaustive. All the guilt and grime and gunk - I wanted to be rid of all of it, so I scoured every inch of my memory. I made amends in person wherever possible, and when that wasn't, by phone call or by letter. Most of my amends were gracefully accepted. One in particular was very painfully refused, and that  brought me to a standstill for a while, as I dealt with my feelings surrounding that. My sponsor urged me on. With regard to people with whom I'd lost touch, I made amends with my sponsor standing in for the person.

When I finished, I was completely emptied out, and peaceful. This glorious feeling lasted for all of 5-10 seconds before my sponsor brought me rudely back to reality by asking a pointed question: Why was I not on my amends list? Did I not understand that if I didn't put myself on this list, I would continue to exhibit the same self-defeating behaviors which had caused me so much pain in the past?

She assigned me the monumental task of making up a list of all the ways I had harmed myself. I drove home feeling overwhelmed, and thoroughly annoyed with her, for not allowing me to bask in that great feeling for more than a nanosecond. Remembering that, I laugh - she had me dead to rights, and knew me well enough to perceive that if I didn't do this while still powerfully motivated, I might procrastinate for years.

This was one of the most intense times of self-examination I've ever experienced. It had been a formidable task to do Step Four - a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself; it was something else entirely to winkle out all the ways in which I'd harmed myself. Time and again, I saw that my harm to myself arose from my character defects. Pride, an inflated ego, fear, resentment, and many more, had motivated me to repeatedly choose the worst of all possible solutions to my past difficulties.

If I want to live free of guilt, remorse, or unease, I not only need to make better choices in my behaviors, I also need, when I mis-step, and harm another through sharp words or unkindness, to make amends for that.

Many years ago, I was in a fast-food restaurant, and spoke sharply to the counter person, who was mortified by my rudeness. I got my food, and went out to my car, where I unwrapped it, and could not take a bite. I could feel my Higher Power's presence, and knew what I had to do. I rewrapped the food, and going back into the restaurant, asked the boy if I could speak to him for a moment. He blanched, poor soul, but said yes, and walked down to the end of the counter so I could speak quietly to him. I apologised to him for my rudeness. His entire face lit up, and he accepted my amend with an eager kindness. We made eye contact for a moment, grinning at each other, then said goodbye, and off I went to happily devour my now-cold, but immeasurably delicious, food.