Step 9 AA: When to Make Amends and When Not to FHE Health

Making amends is the process of taking responsibility for one’s wrongdoings and actively working to repair the harm caused by these actions. Making amends is more than “I’m sorry.” It involves acknowledging the hurt or damage done, seeking forgiveness, and, where possible, making things right. Perhaps the person is no longer living, or you no longer have contact with them and reestablishing contact would cause more harm. Be prepared to listen to the other person’s side of the story and to validate their feelings of hurt and betrayal, and own up fully to your wrongdoings rather than becoming defensive or emotional.

Amends vs. Apologies

After completing step eight, you’ll have to categorize the names based on the sort of amends you can (or can’t) make. It might be helpful to resort to the moral inventory that you’ve made for step four of the program. If you are looking to repair a relationship, here are some tips. If it has been hard for you to make amends, please know we are here for you. We can provide resources that can help you and connect you with a licensed counselor or certified coach. Here are some suggestions on what to do—and say—when making amends.

Be Patient and Understanding

An apology is expressing regret or saying sorry for causing harm to someone. Making an amend means taking accountability and action to repair any damages done. Through these restorative actions, you demonstrate your commitment to change.

Making Amends in Recovery: What It Means and Why It Matters

Mutual Aid, peer led support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous guide members to work through these steps to maintain sobriety and help others. This concept of “living amends” is an great example of “watering down” the 12 step program, for non-alcoholics (hard drinkers), who make the vocal majority of AA in 2009. There are https://konyanetsis.com/kidney-pain-causes-why-kidneys-hurt-and-when-to/ many profound differences between giving someone an apology and making amends with them. Simply put, an apology is like putting a band aid on a wound; it covers the source of the pain until it eventually disappears. When you make a sincere apology to someone that you’ve hurt, it makes you both feel a little better but it doesn’’t really do anything to correct the situation that you have caused.

• Support systems play a vital role in the process of doing the ninth step.
• Finally, when we can be accountable and make amends, we are forced to face our humanness.
• In these cases, reflect on whether reaching out is to clear your own conscience at the other person’s expense.
• It encourages individuals to confront the past honestly, take responsibility without excuses or blame, and demonstrate a genuine commitment to change.

What’s the Difference between Making Amends and Offering an Apology?

No promise of anything, especially Townsend’s vow to make amends in the Calcutta Cup. This part is perhaps the most daunting, but it is also the most important. Let the other person explain how they feel, how they were affected, and what they need to move forward. This is a frequent topic of discussion for people once addicted to alcohol or drugs.

Get the Help Your Loved One Deserves

• It won’t be easy, and you’ll likely feel waves of regret washing over you.
• After embracing a sober lifestyle, you continue to live well and treat family and friends as they should be treated.
• On the other hand, some people consider living amends to be a whole sober lifestyle.
• Making amends is a cornerstone of the recovery process in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA).
• Assess whether making amends might cause additional harm to the other person involved.

Your ‘living amends’ is living in a way that that acknowledges the previous mistake by consistently living in a way that doesn’t repeat it or compensates for it. Living amends demonstrate personal growth and commitment to change in recovery. It’s an alternative when direct amends cannot be made safely or might cause more harm. Honesty is key in determining impactful living amends, which require ongoing effort and dedication to show real transformation. Donating money, volunteering time, or providing care can serve as indirect amends when direct communication is not Sober living house feasible.

• It would be helpful if grieving parents had a support system like AA.
• Living amends refers to making promises to the people in your life whom you’ve wronged or who have hurt you.
• More than an apology, it’s about making genuine amends—taking action to correct past mistakes without causing harm.

An amend involves rectifying or making right what was wrong. For example, say that you stole $20 from your brother while you were using. In the midst of your ninth step, you say to him “I’m so sorry that I stole that money from you and used it for drugs”. A true amend would be giving him $20 back along with the apology. Unfortunately, there are many things that we do in our using that we can not rectify with tangible goods or direct amends.

Making amends can ease shame, reduce guilt and strengthen your recovery. It’s a way to clean up your side of the living amends street and live with more peace and purpose. Over the years, in small bits and pieces, I have been able to share small pearls of my Al-anon wisdom. It’s much easier to just apologize and move on, but committing to living your life differently looks different.

Another example of a living amend could be to accept the fact we owe someone an amount of money we cannot currently pay all at once. We make a promise to pay an amount we can every month and begin on the day we make the face-to-face amends, and we have a set timeline for when all the money will be paid back. November 3, 2025 marked the completion of Centerstone’s historic merger with Brightli. Together, our organization now employs more than 10,000 team members and serves the mental health needs of more than 250,000 people annually. Making amends is challenging, but the outcome can be one of the most rewarding parts of recovery. Recognize and acknowledge your behaviors that caused harm to someone else.