A Lighter Load
MY name’s Bill and I’m an alcoholic. Step Nine was the first Step where I’m out in the big wide world by myself, with an aim to start the process of sorting out the wreckage of my past. I have heard it said, “The best amends I can make to myself is to rid myself of fear, guilt, shame and remorse.” I’m on a path to reverse the anguish I caused, realign the misdeeds of my drinking and assuage the emotional upset of a misspent life.
Saying sorry was but a beginning. Amends are not really about saying sorry, we’re actually on a journey to put right the harms we caused. “Selfishness—self-centredness! That, we think, was the root of our troubles.” (BB p.62) And it certainly was with me. Through a life of self-centred thinking, I completely misunderstood and misjudged how my actions, my deeds and my words affected other people.
This share is too short to go through all of my amends. Suffice to say, I read letters out at gravestones. I made face-to-face amends. I unexpectedly bumped into two people I was hoping I’d never see again. I did go on to make all but one of the amends on my list. Thankfully, all went really well. My living amends to my family will be forever ongoing, as are my amends to a world from which I took for far too long. Making amends is one more step forward towards a new life, towards a fourth dimension.
Yes, there were some amends that would do more harm than good – where the best amends I could make was to keep completely out of their lives. For the rest, I was advised to do my amends eyeball-to-eyeball, face-to-face. For this is where I can begin to humble myself. This Step is as much about me continuing along my spiritual path as it is about me being able to look at people in the future, face-to-face.
I had big financial amends to make. If I was clever enough to take the money, I’m surely clever enough to pay it all back. It took me three long years, and it was difficult. But spiritually the rewards were worth every penny. The harder the journey, some say, the better the results. I made amends to my car, our home, and the garden. For those direct amends I couldn’t make, I made donations to charities, I planted trees and did numerous things to help in other ways. Giving back, albeit indirectly, was my way of rebuilding from a guilt-ridden, messed up, broken past. Today, all these years later, my Step Nine will never be finished. I will always have my ‘world’ amends to make. Daily, I can pick up a piece of litter, I can let someone out each day when driving – even when I don’t have to. If I see a snail or any little creature on the pavement, I can put them in the hedge. And guess what, even after 28 years, each of these small amends becomes yet another spiritual awakening, a connection.
I’m reversing the tide of my drinking by giving and not taking. My sobriety continues to be built upon the very first lesson, the keystone of staying sober. If I want to keep what I’ve got, I need to give it away. With each and every amend, I’m giving of my time to help someone or something else. Through the spiritual journey of this Step, I’m continuing to help make the world a better place. To date, the biggest recipient of all my amends is me because I find that the fear, the guilt, the shame and the remorse I feel seems to get just a little lighter to carry, and a little easier to deal with, on each passing day.
BILL THE SHIRT, Bristol