Getting Honest with Step Nine

Step Nine in Addictive Eaters Anonymous: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

A member of Addictive Eaters Anonymous spoke to other AEA members about their experience of living the Twelve Steps. This blog is the edited transcript of one member's interview on Step Nine. All the readings referred to come from Step Nine in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous book.

The step begins with the attitudes you need as you go out to make your amends: good judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage and prudence (12 Steps and Traditions Pg 83). How did you feel about Step Nine? What were your initial thoughts?

I was so occupied with what others had done, I could not see how I had created situations. It helped me when a sponsor said, it is like, if you stole money, it is so simple, you need to give it back. I took your $20, and here it is. That is the simple fact of Step Nine. It is not that simple, but that really helped me. I think I was scared. I think everybody is scared, just by the thought of Step Nine. It helped me to work the steps thoroughly, to do a rigorous Step Four, and Step Five, to get a chance to see what I had done.

So you had done your Step Four and Step Five and had an idea of where you needed to go with your Step Nine? You did your Step Eight and made a list of people? 

Yes, as it says in the Big Book. The people that were there on the list, they were the people I needed to approach. 

The step talks about approaching your family first. Is that the way you did it? I imagine that there was discussion with a sponsor.

I never made a ninth step amends without discussing it with my sponsor. Before AEA, I had tried making some amends, and that really showed my insensitivity.  Once someone had the courtesy to say that was not a very pleasant conversation with you. I couldn't believe it, but then I saw that if I am not accepting what I am about and I don't have the humility or a clue why I'm saying sorry for my behavior, then it would be terrible to go on and waste everybody's time. It was so important that someone told me that what I said was not very nice, that it felt to them like something I just needed to do, like ticking a box. 

So I had some experience with Step Nine, but not at all as I was later taught in AEA. Being sober from all mind-altering substances helped me to work the steps and to really have a thorough and clear vision of, whoa, my behavior is insane and something I really need to change.

So did you have a lot of people to approach, were there a lot of people that you needed to make amends to? 

There were, and people that I had approached before. It was with a completely different attitude, feeling and outcome, because I really learnt in AEA what Step Nine is about. It says in the text not to be a hasty and foolish martyr. You need to be thorough, honest, and to have a sincere desire to right any wrongs. And I had that, especially with my mom. The first time, I didn't even know if she knew what was going on. We were walking and I was talking and I was still angry. She didn't pay any attention to me, and I started again with the old story of not being understood. But the next time, following directions, I was able to say, I want to talk to you, and can we meet? We sat at the cemetery on a bench on a summer day, and it was just so great, because I was sincere, and we were both paying attention. That was my experience this time around. It was almost like I never saw these people before. It was a whole new way of relating to people.

So did you have to prepare yourself before you went to meet people? 

I was very clear on what I needed to do and what I needed to say. I was directed to pray, to leave it up to God, and to take God. This is not my show. This is in God's hands. There were people who did not want to meet up with me who said, that’s nice but no way am I going to listen to you, no matter my intention. But that is fine, too, as it is not about me. It is about trying to right the wrongs to be able to live this sober life, and to be able to look ourselves in the eye, and to be able to say to God, I'm doing everything I can. 

Already when I contacted people I had not seen for decades, I told them I had something I wanted to talk to them about if they had the time, and I didn't get any more into it. I think it was very important to meet up. And if people didn't want to meet then I prepared with my sponsor to make amends on the phone, so I wouldn't miss the chance. I also had to stop what I could see the behavior was about and take it into my life, and really do it also in other similar situations. So it was a lesson to be learnt.

I had to make amends for all sorts of things. I mean, financial, sexual, bad behavior, dominating, egotistical, and selfish behavior, most of the time, just being so caught up in myself, not at all paying attention to whatever people had going on in their lives. So there were a lot of different things but selfishness was running through it all, and the insanity of the disease. Also, the changes in my mood, where I could be fun and happy, and then, when I was in my addiction, I was completely off the wall, so angry and aggressive.

I love that point that the amends are not to make me feel better or take the burden off my shoulders.  The amends are to do what is right and to fix that broken relationship or fix that wrong. And in that way, it becomes a living amends. You could see your character defects behind those behaviors.

Absolutely. I met with my old boyfriend who looked at me and said, “Are you still crazy?” He had an expectation of me being off the wall, because I always was. It was so insane.

And so by making amends it would not have been the end of those behaviors completely, but I assume that it certainly shined the sunlight of the spirit onto those behaviors. 

Living a sober life, close to sponsorship, close to God, and close to meetings gives a second voice in my thinking. I will try to explain it. There is still the mad thing going on, and then there is a quiet voice saying, Oh, could this be right? This might not be right, and that is the relief. That is the healthy voice that becomes louder and louder the more you feed it. I really experienced it that way, especially after doing Step Nine, where a lot of people corrected me in what I thought about the way it was. They said, “Nah, it wasn't like that. It was like this. I said to my old teachers, “This is what I saw.” And they said, “No it was not like that. It was like this. You weren't like that.” When I met up with an old teacher, she said, “You were so tense and caught up in your own ideas that nobody could change your mind if you said this is the way it is. Your mom, me, nobody could make you go a different way.” And I thought, oh, yea that's this addiction. I was so caught up in thinking this is right that I could not even see or hear people screaming at me, “Don't do it, come on!” 

Now, I can see the isolation, the loneliness and what I felt like, how I always had been so lonely, so apart, because if you are not willing to play what I want to play, then I'm alone. But, I didn't even notice that they would invite me in and say, “Come be with us.” No, if you were doing something I didn't want, I would have rather been on my own. So this was a really big eye- opener for me. 

And so what a gift to get another lens, another view of how people saw you. In fact, you can see from their eyes your unwellness and your disease, but when you're in it, you think that you're right and the way you are thinking is right. That self centeredness, we're just so full of it, in the disease.  Did anybody that you spoke to sort of surprise you in their reaction to your amends?

I was surprised by the love I was greeted with. I was surprised when someone said, “Do you remember all the fun we had, how we played?” I don't remember. I only remember what I weighed! So the surprise was missing out on life because of my addiction, missing out on real life, because of being so caught up in how I looked and with me, me, me, instead of being there, of being present, and being a part of life.

I said to my old priest when I made my amends, how I had been so dishonest. She looked at me and said, “No, no, no, no, you believed in everything you said. You believed it. You were not dishonest.” That scared me because when I was going for it, I believed it, no matter how insane it was. That's the same again. That's the addiction.

Gosh, great to get that honest feedback. So no one said there was no need for the amends? Everybody saw that there was a need for the amends that you made?

Yes, and some said, there is no reason for me. I have absolutely no reason to sit down and talk to you, but I will, because I will give it a chance. Those relationships were pretty broken, tense, and some actually explained to me their concern, and all they had tried to do to help me, and I didn't know. I thought my addiction hadn't affected them. I had a friend who just started crying, and said, “You don't know how awful it was and how devastated we were.”

It is kind of like creating a patchwork life because there have been periods where I thought I could not remember anything. Then it sort of comes to light, and it is not scary because it is a sober life and it is in good hands. It's like, all of a sudden being able to breathe and to live in the world. I think that is what Step Nine is. It is not pretend. It is being able to be the person I am, the person God wants me to be, and to live in this world.