We have a list of all persons …

The time I finally worked through steps 4 through 9, my sponsor had me follow a “5th step guide” that had been put together by a sober priest that had heard many, many 5th steps.  I wouldn’t recommend everyone taking the path I took, because the outline of how to do your 4th and 5th step is much simpler in the Big Book.  Working my 4th step from a “guide” wasn’t the only thing I did differently either.  After I finished my 5th step with my sponsor, I threw the thing away!

Looking back, I realize this doesn’t exactly fall into the instructions laid out in the big book, but something must have happened because I’ve managed to stay sober all this time.  It just took some extra work to get that 8th step list re-created.  My sponser at the time told me this: “There are always some people on your 4th step list that don’t need to be on your 8th.  And there are people that NEED to be on your 8th that never showed up on your 4th.  So take the time and search your heart and past once more to create this list.  It’s going to be an inevitable experience that you will run into someone later on that you will need to make amends to that you haven’t thought of at all.”

He believed the most important part of all this was to teach me the process.  Once you recognize your wrong, ask god for the strength and the opportunity to make it right.  Because I’m human, I’m going to continue to make mistakes that will require action on my part to try and set them straight.  The process outlined in the book is very much the same way.  We don’t drag our feet and we keep an open mind.  If you use the list you made during the 4th step, it makes the process a little faster and will cover most all of the amends you need to make.

“If we havent’ the will to do this, we ask until it comes.  Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.”  -Alcoholics Anonymous Pg 76 

Heard in a meeting…

After reading a post by Mark W on his blog A Dozen Steps, I decided to rekindle this blog site and create this “Heard in a Meeting” as a topic all it’s own.  Mark has been a really great inspiration and really instrumental in taking a closer look at the program that’s been saving lives for over 70 years now.

To kick off this new topic, I’ll start with something I heard last night that was put so simply and so right on, it deserves to the be first installment.

Prayerful Consideration for Those We’ve Harmed

In another wonderful post by markw Purposeful Forgetting on his blog at www.adozensteps.com:

“I’m here to tell you that if you’re about to consider your amends, your list of people you’ve harmed” …”casual apologies will NOT cut it! Nor should they… because we have done harm, real harm.”

I used to drink with my next door neighbor.  Often times I’d walk into the front yard and he’d invite me over for a beer on the porch.  One beer led to the next and we’d be off to buy more.  Sometimes we had to stop at one of our favorite beer joints along the way.  This was a pretty normal routine about every other day.  One thing that had slipped my mind for years was how I’d almost constantly leave the front door standing wide open when I went next door.  Often times leaving the house empty but more often than not, with my family inside sleeping.  I never once considered the horror they must have been going through when they awoke in the night, me gone and the front door standing wide open.

Faith without works is dead

Let’s look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven’t the will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.

8th step list

After having made a drastic self-appraisal (the 4th and 5th steps) we have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends.

In this portion of working through the steps, we are attempting to restore relations with the people we have come across and who have been unfortunate to come across us.  As the step reads on the wall it’s got two parts:

1. Making a list.
2. Becoming willing to make amends to everyone on the list.

What it was like near the end of my drinking

I didn’t know for sure what my problems were but I wished for the end.  I looked for a jumping off place.  I no longer looked into the night sky and wondered what my purpose was.  Life didn’t mean anything and my life was certainly going nowhere good.  All my so-called friends didn’t want me around any more.  At one point, in a black-out, I’d gone to my best friends house at 1:30 in the morning and pounded on his door till he opened it.  He and his wife and young daughter had been sleeping soundly till my insistant pounding woke them all up.

What it was like…Continued

In fourth grade, my parents officially started the divorce proceedings and it was painfully obvious to me that all my classmates would know I was from a defective home and would be made fun of because my parents could work out their problems.  I came to realize much later in life that I somehow labeled my own self-worth by how I thought other people were judging me.  My parents fought for years because my of my fathers drinking.  They would often start an argument and dad would leave for a loaf of bread and might be gone for 30 minutes or 30 days. 

What it was like…

I used to be the only one I knew awake at 3:00 in the morning… I’d be incredibly bored, looking for something FUN to do.  The liquor stores were way closed and I was usually out of money.  All the friends I’d started the evening with we’re all passed out or had gone their seperate ways – Usually with their dates.  I would stare at the stars in the sky and wonder why on earth was I put here.