Unfortunately, this scenario plays out much too often in the lives of people who didn’t get a chance to correct their mistakes and past behaviors in time. Sometimes, making direct amends with someone may lead to further harm. For example, if you are estranged from a loved one and they will not see you, your indirect amends may involve reflecting on and modifying the behaviors living amends that led to the estrangement. Maybe you have intense social anxiety and the group model doesn’t work for you, or you feel uncomfortable with how God is invoked throughout the program. Maybe AA’s hard line on what counts as recovery — lifelong abstinence from alcohol and all other drugs — has actually made it harder for you to change your relationship to drinking.

You stole property or money from a family member or friend. You would apologize for your actions and admit your wrongdoing. Then, you would offer to replace the property or pay back the money. “Years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or child neurotic.

What If My Attempt to Make Things Right Goes Wrong and Things Get Worse?

Each day I ask my Higher Power for the strength to help me stay sober and live responsibly and with honesty. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, but if not, I understand. Direct amends refers to going directly to the wronged individual, apologizing and taking whatever action is necessary to correct a situation. If an individual damaged someone else’s home while they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, direct amends may require that they go to the property owner, apologize and repair damages.

There is a great deal of common sense in the AA program, despite the fact that we often seem to be swimming against the title of general behavior in our principles and actions. We do not, merely https://ecosoberhouse.com/ for the sake of an obscure principle, always tell the whole truth at all costs. Many feel unworthy to have their partner in their life at all after everything they’ve put them through.

Focus on your behavior.

You don’t have to take our word for the success of sober living in preventing relapse. Please read our success stories below, or contact our team today to talk to some of our experts. This sub is a community for people in recovery to share their experience, support, and hope with each other. Addiction takes over your life, stealing both your joy and your time, and making it impossible for you to give back to others and live a generous life. Instead, as you pursue a life in recovery, focus on being generous with your time and giving back to others. In this way, you can take the focus off of yourself and choose to live a life of greater meaning.

He’s a teenager, so I try to let him function at that age level. When he runs out of clean clothes, I don’t lecture or offer solutions. I let him decide if he wants to do laundry at midnight or wear dirty clothes. I no longer interrogate him about his day at school, so I can give my wise advice on how to handle difficult peers. I’m not his teacher, and I’m sure she’s skilled at handling that type of problem.

Graduate School of Addiction Studies

After years of being bossy and overbearing, my basic apologies meant little. They don’t always see my hands off approach as sincere kindness, but my motives are pure. But, by facing reality and the long-term impact of your actions, and making amends to those you’ve hurt, you’re able to make peace with the past and put it behind you and move forward. Another example would be of a person who’s been a taker all their lives suddenly decides they no longer want to be self-centered and selfish. They may choose to make living amends by promising to change their ways and become more helpful to others. If you have devoted the necessary time and energy to the first 8 steps, you should have a solid foundation from which to approach making amends in Step 9.

• They may visit family members and friends more often, set aside time to spend with their partner or donate their time to a worthy cause.
• Your relationship with a higher power—no matter how you define it—can help you to remain open and willing, even as you acknowledge hard truths about pain you have caused to others.
• Here is $200, and if I’m incorrect and owe you more, I will repay the remainder.

The changes that occur due to your efforts positively affect your commitment to becoming a better friend, child, parent, or person all around. Living amends is a concept linked to addiction recovery and part of the twelve-step program for sober living. In simple terms, it means taking responsibility for the person you used to be and how you caused harm to the people in your life who care about you. Making amends reduces this feeling of stress and shame you could experience, especially if the person didn’t know you making living amends during addiction recovery were in recovery. Indirect amends usually follows a direct amend and deals with the motivations behind your behavior.

By forgiving others we start to recognize our own humanness, and it gives us the capacity to be less judgmental than we were in the past. We become aware that since we usually mean well, we can extend that belief to others. Even though we may be eager to rip the Band-Aid off and get an amend over and done with, it’s important that we are not impulsive or careless as we attempt to make amends! Some thought and planning needs to go into it for the best possible outcome. On the flipside of the same AA coin, it is equally important that you don’t procrastinate making amends. David Kessler discusses a living amends in his latest book, Finding Meaning.

You might go to that person and take responsibility for what you have done wrong, express you deep remorse, and ask what you can do to make it up to them. You may couple that making of amends with a request for forgiveness. We can go to them directly and work through it (or at least try).

Finally, there is always the thought of what might have been if only we had not neglected a responsibility or failed to take advantage of an opportunity. In more than a few cases, alcoholics ought to make amends to themselves, for they were the chief victims of their own harmful thoughts and actions. I feel strongly that my own night-school education over the past few years, leading to a high-school diploma and then to graduation from our local community college, is in this category. If any alcoholic feels that sins of omission or commission denied him some supposed good in life, he should ask himself whether it really is too late to make it up to himself. The only barrier, in many cases, is not age at all; often, it is only a mixture of fear and laziness. This is evasion and will never give us a true sense of breaking with the wrongdoings of the past.

It's important to note that making amends is for the person we hurt. Yes, we partake in the process to "clean up our side of the street," but we do not make amends to clear our conscience or undo our feelings of guilt. If someone does not want to hear from us, we respect that and do our best to move forward with our recoveries. To fix broken relationships, you have to put a lot of effort into making things work. It’s not enough to say to someone that you apologize and feel badly for how you acted in the past. It takes a certain maturity and level of respect for yourself and the person you’re hoping to reconnect with to get past any past issues.