My constant battle with multiple addictions has created moral and physical wreckage in my life.The addict that I have become has lied, cheated, or stolen in order to get and use my drug of choice and hurt many of people along the way. What I have left behind is a trail of shattered relationships so tremendous that when I got clean I was over whelmed. Not knowing where to begin or how to pick up the pieces. My biggest mistake “I wanted to fix everything over night”. I wanted approval and acceptance and most deffintely. I wanted my loved ones to acknowledge the fact that I was clean. "Wow", as I look back- I ask myself “What the hell was I thinking”?
It is amazing the difference between then and today. I can honestly say I have grown up in the program. The promises of alcoholics anonymous have unfolded before my eyes and have made me a believer. I am at a point in my life where I need the feeling of belonging and the novelty of hope and belief must fit in there some where!. In my search for this feeling of belonging, the blessing were unfolding in my life. Doors were opened and slowly the poisons of self centeredness were slipping away.
I wanted to make amends so that my feeling of guilt would wash away; at least this was my theory. An amend has to do with restoring justice as much as possible. The idea is to restore in a direct way that which we have broken or damaged--or to make restoration in a symbolic way if we can't do it directly. Little did I know I was trying to work step 11 & 12 before I even worked the sequential steps that were suggested. Need I say anymore? You know the outcome- I was told that I was jumping the gun and way ahead of myself and that I am not going to make it in the program. Well, I thought how dare someone tell me I was not going to make it!
I decided to take it a slower and take the suggestions. Back to step one the hardest step for me I WAS POWERLESS. But, as I worked the steps the answers unfolded. That is the miracle for me. When I got to the point of making my amends I made them and then I realized now I have to live them. Sometimes people talk about "living" amends. This simply means that we live differently. Amends are about a genuine change in our behavior instead of the patchwork of an apology. We take on a whole new way of life. We stop accumulating fresh insults to our selves and others. Just for today I take one step at a time, and I live my life to the best of my ability working the steps into my every day living.
Sernity Hope
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