One of the men I sponsor called. "I'm really angry," he
shouted. "I hear you!" I said. "Why not tell me what has
happened?"
It seems that a good friend of his, just a few months
into recovery, had been committed to the psychiatric ward of
a local hospital. Some days earlier, after a meeting, a man
she had dated when they were both using came up to her.
"I've come to make amends," he said, and proceeded to tell
her how one night, when she had been really drugged up, he
had raped her. She had not remembered the incident. But his
words brought it back to her; she could not handle the
feelings, had made an attempt on her life, and had been
committed for psychiatric care.
From what my sponsee could gather, the man had done
some reading on the Eighth and Ninth Steps, had decided that
he needed to do something about his actions towards the
woman, and without much further thought or saying anything to
anyone, had spoken to his victim. He hadn't intended to harm
her -- but he did.
What can I do about it? my sponsee asked. The damage
had been done and could not be undone. We discussed how he
might resolve his anger at the man (killing him wasn't really
an option!) and ways in which he could support his friend as
she coped with memories and feelings which were overwhelming
her.

I added that incident to a list of similar ones invol-
ving the Eighth and Ninth Steps I've heard about in my years
in the program, including:
-- the woman who wrote a detailed letter to her husband
from whom she was separated, outlining in it all the ways in
which she had failed him as a wife. She was surprised when,
a couple years after, her letter was entered in evidence
during their divorce proceedings;
-- the man who wrote a letter to his ex-girl-friend
confessing to what a jerk he had been. The "ex" thought it
was his way of asking her to come back to him. So without
warning she turned up at his home. The man had a lot of
explaining to do both to his "ex" and to his wife, who
suspected his motives in writing the letter;
-- the young woman who decided that honesty required her
to tell her husband that she had supported her coke habit by
working as an expensive call-girl. She couldn't understand
why her husband left her ("I was only trying to be honest!").
She relapsed during the messy divorce that followed and, as
far as I know, is still out using.

Unfortunately, we often hear that incidents like these
have happened to people we know. Our well-meaning attempts
to make amends to others can sometimes fail badly. Many of
us can probably think of times in which we ended up harming
the very people we wanted to heal, or gave ourselves

unnecessary pain in doing the Ninth Step. Certainly, my own
working of that Step includes a small (thankfully!) number of
times when the outcomes of my amends-making were a lot less
happy than I had hoped. Sometimes these failures were due to
circumstances beyond my control and which couldn't be
anticipated. Events don't always go as I think they will
and, even with the best of planning and wisest of advice,
unexpected results happen.
In other cases, however, the negative results pointed to
weaknesses in my recovery program. I would, for example, act
without thinking and far from making amends, would bring
about further harm to others. When in early recovery I
started to realize how many people I had damaged, I began
trying to make it up to them right away even though I still
had a lot of healing of my own to do. What a mess I sometimes
made! I had to be reminded more than once that there were
seven Steps of self-healing that I needed to do before I
would be ready to bring good, permanent healing to others.
The principal weakness, however, which my first attempts
to do the Ninth Step brought home to me was my failure to
remember that this is a "We" program, and that my sponsor and
other program people are important resources in helping me to
successfully work the "Amends Steps."

For me, the key to working the Ninth Step successfully
is to be found in the Eighth Step. "Making a list" and

"becoming willing" involve discovering WHO I have damaged;
assessing WHAT I did to them; and planning HOW I will "mend"
the damages I caused. My experience has shown me that such
discovery, assessment, and planning are best done through
honest discussion with my sponsor and my other trusted
advisors.
I am not always aware of who I have damaged, or what I
have done to them. In some cases it can, of course, be
painfully obvious. But the more subtle damages, especially
those in which I emotionally harmed or victimized another
person, can be more difficult for me to recognize. My
continuing habit of finding excuses for myself and of blaming
other people for what I chose to do to them frequently get in
the way of the kind of honest self-evaluation which is at the
heart of the Eighth Step. It is here that my sponsor's
objective insights and suggestions about the WHO and the WHAT
go a long way in helping me get a sense of HOW I can best
make amends to the people I have harmed, without further
injuring them or others.
One factor common to all the incidents I mentioned
earlier is that the people involved were acting on their own,
trying to make amends without first asking others for their
help and advice. The man who raped the woman wanted to do
the right thing. Had he spoken to his sponsor, or to other
trusted advisors, about what he might do, they might have
warned him to go very carefully since rape victims often
block away all memories of the event and can be seriously

harmed by a too-sudden and unexpected confrontation with its
reality. Similarly, the woman who wrote an incriminating
letter to her estranged husband, or the man who wrote his ex-
girl-friend, or the woman who confessed her prostitution to
her husband -- in these cases, the harm they caused others,
to say nothing of the unnecessary pain most gave to them-
selves, might have been avoided if they had remembered that
the Eighth and Ninth Steps begin with "We."
For most of us, when we make amends, the outcome is
good. A lot of the time, our sponsors don't have to do more
than encourage us in what we plan to do. At other times,
though, and especially if our amends-making touches on very
sensitive matters, a sponsor's wise advice on the WHO, WHAT,
and HOW can be of real value. We are in a "We" program; with
the help of others we can successfully work the Ninth Step
and can, through it, discover a level of inner peace and
fulfillment we had not known before.

Jamie C.