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 

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.

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.