Just to be clear, the AA program does not say we include ourselves as "others" It says " we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others".
The sponsors only job is to take you through all the steps. Of course this will only work if you have a sponsor who has actually taken all the steps. As such he/she will have be able to offer valuable experience with step nine. Step nine is not always about a direct approach. I remember one I had to approach through a third party to set up a meeting.
What kind of risks are amends fraught with?
Actual example. A guy I sponsored woke up one morning with a bright idea to make amends to his wife for sleeping with another woman. He did not talk to me. He was not up to step 9. He told his wife and could not understand why she kicked him out. He named the other woman so his wife went round and confronted her in front of her husband. That marriage ended also. A few weeks later he drank and is still drinking. A bad plan with wrong motives resulted in three adults and several children being injured, and him back drinking.
What is the "great care" that needs to be taken?
You could say the previous steps. In the earlier steps we are working with sympathetic AA members who understand what we are trying to do. The ninth step brings us into contact with people who are not obliged to be sympathetic, who may be hurting from harm we have done and may react anyway they feel like... and we must accept however they react to our approach. We must not "lose it".
Again jumping ahead to amends can result on wrong reactions on our part because we are still thinking with our alcoholic mind, have not yet come to grips with how our reaction to life is a bit off beam.
So we get a situation where someone reacts badly, not how we "expect" them to behave, perhaps they give us a mouthful of abuse, so we give as good as we get. Nothing is accomplished other than adding one more amends to our list.
Hmm. This confuses me. I read "wherever possible" as, if you can buy a plane ticket or drive to see the person. It's interesting to see you read "wherever possible" as "unless person is very sick." (I sure wish there was a cliff notes to the big book! ;-)
It wasn't possible for me to make proper amends to my sister or mother because they are both raging alcoholics. I paid back money I owed them, but though I tried, there has been nothing I could do or say that they could accept as amends for my behaviour, nothing I could do to bring about a restoration of trust and reconciliation. I have done what I could, but it wasn't possible to complete the amends in the way that I could with my father and other folk I harmed. It may become possible in the future, but after 35 years, I have my doubts.