Originally Posted by
doggonecarl 
... Not calling this the correct answer (would love to hear what others think) but I look at it like this, that such an amend would be a clearing of my conscience at the expense of someone else...Sort of trading my hurt for another's.
IMO, that's exactly what it would be.
...and I am wondering (I am sure my sponsor will cover) what we do when the people we harmed do not know we harmed them! Do we just say "Hey, sorry I called you a fatty McFatterson behind your back for 8 years" or "Oh, by the way, I slept with your boyfriend-- sorry about that!" that just doesn't seem right to me...
What comes to mind here is how it talks about (in our literature) how we could be in a meeting - listening to someone share - and judging them harshly. It states that we shouldn't go up to them and divulge what we were thinking, but we should make a conscious effort to change our behavior.
Step 9 (in IWH&W) tells us:
"Suppose that, in our Fourth Step, we wrote about people we had secretly resented for years. Unbeknownst to those people, we had ridiculed, judged, and condemned them or otherwise defamed their character to others. Because all that character assassination was taking place behind those people's backs, do we now go to them and confess? Certainly not!"
IMO, this would apply to most (if not all) harm that people aren't aware of. To bring about this awareness would cause more harm, and that's not what Step 9 is about.
G