Fears and Expectations
Making amends isn't always a nerve wracking joyless experience. Often, we will feel excited about the prospect of healing a relationship. We may find that we're happily anticipating the relief of having made an amends. For most of us, however, we will feel fearful about at least some of our amends. We may be afraid that if we make financial amends, we won't have enough for ourselves. We may be afraid of rejection, retailiation, or something else.
If we've never had any experience with the Ninth Step before, we're really venturing into the unknown. We're not sure how we're going to feel immediately before the amends during the amends, and after the amends. We may feel wildly overconfident at one moment and then, the next moment, feel totally unable to go on with the Ninth Step. This is a time when it's very important to understand that the way things feel is not necessarily the way things are, just because we feel afraid doesn't mean there's truly something to fear. On the other hand, feeling excited and happy won't necessarily reflect the reality of making amends. It's best to let go of all our expectations about how our amends will be received.
*What fears do I have about making amends? Am I worried that someone will take revenge or reject me?
*How does the Ninth Step require a new level of surrender to the program?
*What about financial amends? Do I have faith that the God of my understanding will ensure I have what I need even though I am sacrificing to make amends?
No matter how long we've been clean or how many times we've been through the steps, we're bound to have some fears and expectations as we begin a new step. This may be especially true if we have previous experience with a step. The Ninth Step, in particular, is likely to produce some ambivaalence. For instance, many of us may find ourselves thinking about our past experiences with making amends at this point. Some have probably been very positive. If we made amends to a loved one who was open to our gesture of conciliation, we probably came away with a wonderful feeling of hope and gratitude. We were hopeful that the relationship would keep on getting better, and we were grateful to be forgiven and have our amends accepted.
Believe it or not, such experiences may work against us in later amends. They can set us up to believe that all our amends should turn out so well, and then be crushed when they don't. Or we may recognize that such amends aren't going to be the norm, and dread to the point of delay making amends whose outcome we aren't sure will be so good. If we find ourselves hung up on projecting how our amends will turn out, we need to re-focus on the purpose of the Ninth Step.
The Ninth Step is meant to give a way to set right the damage we've caused in the past. Some of us keep in mind that three primary concepts are associated with making amends: resolution, restoration, and restitution. Resolution implies that to find an answer to the problem, we must lay to rest what as previously plaguing or disturbing us in some way. Restoration means to bring back to its former state something that had been damaged. This can be a relationship or a quality that used to exist in a relationship, such as trust. We can perhaps restore our reputations if they were good at some point in the past. Restitution is very similar to restoration, but in relating it to the Ninth Step, we think of it as the act of returning something---material or more abstract-- to its rightful owner. Our sponsor can help us explore each of these concepts so that we can gain perspective on the mnature of making amends and stay focused on what we're supposed to be doing. It's only through the process that we realize many of the benefits associated with the Ninth Step. The ones that we may be aware of first are a sense of freedom, or an absence of guilt and shame. It may take some time in recovery or experience with several amends for us to appreciate some of the spiritual rewards of the Ninth Step: a more consistent awareness of the feelings of others and the effect of our behavior on others, a sense of joy that we were able to heal a long-standing hurt, an ability to be more loving and accepting of the people around us.
*What other fears or expectations do I have about my amends?
*Why doesn't it matter how my amends are received?
What does this have to do with the spiritual purpose of the Ninth Step?
*How can I use other addicts, my sponsor, and my Higher Power as sources of strength in this process?