“Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”
Copyright © 1939, 1955, 1976, Alcoholics Anonymous World Service®, All rights reserved.
For me this was a pretty straight forward step in the fact that those on my Fourth step pretty closely matched those I needed to include in my Eighth step. The one person I hadn’t thought about listing was myself. I had harmed myself badly and because I was trying to make repairs to my past, I thought that when it came to me, what I had suffered at my own hand was just the price I had to pay to get sober.
Again willingness to make amends was another story. Sometimes the best I could muster in my heart was “I’m sorry you S.O.B.!” Usually, the person proceeded to tell me how sorry I really was.
One by one those in my past came back to haunt me in one way or another and I had to come to terms with willing to make amends.
Step Eight is about willingness. Step Eight is about looking past self to other's needs. Step Eight is about salvaging the future from the wreckage of the past.
Step Nine |
