Make Amends

Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 

How It Works: Although these reparations take innumerable forms, there are some general principles which we find guiding. Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything.  – A.A. Big Book p.79

Give and It Shall be Given to You. Luke 6:38.
Give and It Shall be Given to You. Luke 6:38.

Give and it shall be given you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:38.

Luke 6:38 Rap

Step 9 completes what I started in step 8. I make amends to those that I have harmed. I pay back debts I owe. I apologize. I write letters. I find time to do and say things that would help heal the damage that I have done. I try to bring goodness where previously I had brought discord and destruction. It takes insight, courage and dedication to make such amends, but now I have the help of my God to knowp what to do and how to do it. I learn to earnestly seek the right way to go about this process from my God. I start to live the kind of life that my God has meant for me to live all along. – From 12Step.org

After we make a list of people we have harmed, we reflect carefully upon each instance, and we try to possess ourselves of the right attitude in which to proceed, we see that the making of direct amends divides those we should approach into several classes. There will be those who ought to be dealt with just as soon as we become reasonably confident that we can maintain our sobriety. There will be those to whom we can make only partial restitution, lest complete disclosures do them or others more harm than good. There will be other cases where action ought to be deferred, and still others in which by the very nature of the situation we shall never be able to make direct personal contact at all.

– Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 83

Give to the Lord and it will be Given to You.