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February 1986

Are you the type of person who makes lists? There are a lot of us around. We make lists of household items, groceries and toiletries; of things to do today, tomorrow and over the weekend; of holidays, vacations and activities for special events.

At many Step discussion meetings in my area, I hear my fellow AAs share their fear upon reaching the Eighth Step. Usually, it’s the fear of the impending Ninth Step confrontation with those they have harmed. “What will she think?” or “What will he say?” followed by our famous “What an order! I can’t go through with it.” Eventually, I was asking the same questions and entertaining similar fears. However, something had to be done because old-timers said that their sobriety depended on how successfully they continued to practice all twelve of the Steps. So I began putting a list together. Fear of losing my sobriety overrode my fear of losing someone’s goodwill.

Naturally, at the head of the list I put my own name, right? No. I was far too used to being first in the universe, far too self-centered. But didn’t I hurt myself more than anybody else by my drinking? Perhaps, but amends to myself began the moment I put the cork in the bottle. At least, that’s the way I came to see it.

My immediate family was high on my list. First my parents, whom I had long blamed for certain deficiencies in my makeup (in addition to my alcoholism); my brother and sisters who I felt had always made unreasonable demands on me.

There were the stores where I had begun a history of petty thievery during my teens. Small thefts, but they totaled up to a pretty penny.

There were couples whose marriages, already a bit shaky, I had done nothing to help. Fact is, I contributed to the grounds for at least one divorce.

There were jobs where I cheated employers of their fair due, as well as setting a very poor example by my drunkenness.

There were romantic love objects, persons used and then tossed aside.

And how many were victims of my big-shotism—people I promised to help find living quarters or jobs through my “connections”? What connections?

That’s a broad outline of my first serious approach to making amends. What did I do about it all? How do you make amends to somebody who has moved to you-know-not-where? How do you return stolen goods to a now-defunct store?

Our founding fathers wisely provided the Eighth Step as a means of collecting our wits, of charting our course as we prepare for a journey that might well prove to be stormy. It is a course where I might find it impossible, due to circumstances, to make amends, but not impossible to include my willingness on my list. To become willing. The Step is also about that, isn’t it?

The Eighth Step provides a time of calm reflection before we get down to the actual amends-making task. As the “Twelve and Twelve” says, “It is the beginning of the end of isolation from our fellows and from God.”

W. H.

New York, New York