Examples of Making Amends in Recovery Addiction Resources

These are all normal emotions that many people in recovery face when they choose to make amends. Your sponsor or counselor can help you through this, but it may help to have examples of what making amends looks like. When discussing our amends list with our sponsors, if we are open-minded, we can start to think about these kinds of situations in ways we haven’t thought about them before. In fact we usually discover that what we first thought was the obvious method of making amends, might not be right after all. When it comes to making amends to others, there are usually a lot of fears and expectations involved.

Benefits of an Addiction Treatment Program

It’s never too late to try and make things right with your loved ones. An important Drug rehabilitation element of step nine is that those in recovery have already begun making amends to themselves by changing some of their behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. The goal of this step is to find freedom by cleaning up the past to live peacefully in the present. Those in recovery are encouraged to keep an ongoing ninth step in their life by continuing to pay off debts and refraining from lying, stealing, or cheating. The ninth step is very action-oriented and provides a sense of relief. Although step nine can be difficult, participants should remember that if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

• While the process may seem daunting at first, you can make amends in a way that’s sincere and respectful.
• If you aren’t able to make direct amends, then you can volunteer your time or help someone else out.
• When first writing your list, don’t worry about including everyone you have wronged.

Sober Halloween Coloring Pages

In some cases, simply opening up a conversation with a friend or family member about your history of alcohol use can begin the process of making amends. Thankfully we are given some insight in to how to make amends through steps 8 and 9. But amends are so much more than just making a list and saying you are sorry, and this is where it becomes important to understand living amends meaning the difference between making an amends and making an apology. That’s when the recovering alcoholic reaches out to people they’ve hurt before getting sober in an attempt to make things right.

The Importance of Amends Where We Caused Harm

You’re already taking a step in the right direction by choosing to address the situation instead of ignoring it. Now you just have to find the right way to apologize and make things right again. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to come to terms with what happened and rebuild your connections with friends and family.

Make a List

• Ninety percent of the time, I keep my mouth shut, but I am my son’s mother.
• In those cases, we can make amends in a broader sense by taking actions like donating money, volunteering our time or providing care.
• However, some may be tempted to take this step too quickly with the primary goal of making themselves feel better fast, avoiding uncomfortable feelings that come up when examining negative behaviors.
• It might be helpful to resort to the moral inventory that you’ve made for step four of the program.

For example, if we hurt people with our lying and we cannot make amends without further injuring them, we would make living amends by making a decision to behave and communicate with complete honesty. We provide a safe, nurturing, and non-judgmental space where clients can focus solely on their recovery journey. Our supportive community fosters trust and encourages open communication, allowing clients to share their experiences and grow together. You may have a list of people you want to make amends to personally. Every month, 150,000 people search for addiction or mental health treatment on Recovery.com.

In a Psychology Today article, Winch also explained that guilt and shame play a large part in the struggle to apologize. If you or someone you love is struggling addiction, Breakthrough Recovery Outreach in Atlanta, GA, offers programs and services than can help. Before you start working step nine, you must have already completed step eight.

Links to Official 12 Step Websites

An Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) can bring out the worst in people. Or perhaps you endangered someone’s life because you drove under the influence at one point. To help you answer these questions, we put together a guide to the living version of step nine. Many aspects of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) can be humbling. I know I said it once, but I’ll say it again – if you are dealing with guilt and you haven’t read the articles above, now is the time.