Completo? Nope.
I just began Step 8 today, and yes, I've been told probably a thousand times since getting sober to not think about Step 9 until I'm there, but how can I not?! I feel like I'm peeking over a crumbly dirt edge of an enormous hole and in that hole are all the terrible and/or humiliating things I've done to myself and to others. I have three people on my amends list so far, and I became so embaressed sitting by myself in the living room writing out what I'd done to those people, I had to put my journal away and work on this instead!
I wonder if I had had any idea that I would have to make amends one day for all the skeezy things I did, if I still would have done them. Honestly? Probably. Because when I was actively drinking and using (and when I was sober but not working the Steps), I either justified the shit I was doing or I blocked it out of my consciousness. So now here I am, without having made a single face-to-face amends or phone call amends or even a message amends, and my ears and cheeks are burning red. Once I had lied or cheated or stolen and then gotten away with it, I thought that was it! Completo! Fini! Finito! Nope.
I realize now that whatever I do, I answer for at some point. I don't mean in a dogmatic, religious, God-shall-smite-thee-for-thy-sins kind of way either; I mean now I must apologize to whoever my behavior(s) effected, and I must also apologize to myself because whatever I did to someone else was done equally to me. When I hit somebody and injured them, I may not have physically hurt myself at that moment, but on the inside I was immediately damaged. Human beings are not meant to be violent toward one another, and my agressive behavior poisoned me each time I acted out.
But enough of the complaining, because I am actually relieved to be where I'm at right now. I've been told that the most inner and outer change occurs between Steps 8 and 12, and I am defintely ready for more improvement in my thoughts! While there has been a huge shift already, I am eager to keep moving forward. I feel like there's a lot of great things and people in my future, and I want to be ready for the oppurtunities with the clearest, strongest, most compassionate and creative mindset I can possibly manage!
I was feeling very resentful, scared and ashamed as I was writing my 8th Step this afternoon, and all these memories were popping up in my head of things that I had done or said that I thought were long gone but were actually just squirming around in shallow graves in my conscience. I was alternating between manically shoveling dirt on top of the disgusting creatures as fast as I could and making a checklist in my head...
"Okay, FINE, I'll make an amends to her BUT I'm only going to message her on Facebook. There's no way I'm going to call her! No WAY!"
"What?! Why him? He treated me like shit first!" *Starts hitting ex boyfriend with shovel*
"She deserved it."
"He doesn't even know I did that, why bring it up now?"
All those thoughts were just my ego acting up, (who gave it a shovel?!) and I am practicing accepting the current egotistical side of me that is to be comforted and also ignored. I realized as I was beginning my amends list that I can purposefully leave people and/or events off, but I'm going to be working these damn Steps for the rest of my life, God willing, and it's all going to come out at some point.
I asked myself: Now, or later? Do I want peace and humility? Do I want happiness? How free do I want to be? I want to be very free! I want to have the ultimate freedom. So I let my cheeks burn and my heart throb as I wrote down my most embaressing amends first, the ones I was determinded to never speak of again. It's not much, but it's a beginning.
I wonder if I had had any idea that I would have to make amends one day for all the skeezy things I did, if I still would have done them. Honestly? Probably. Because when I was actively drinking and using (and when I was sober but not working the Steps), I either justified the shit I was doing or I blocked it out of my consciousness. So now here I am, without having made a single face-to-face amends or phone call amends or even a message amends, and my ears and cheeks are burning red. Once I had lied or cheated or stolen and then gotten away with it, I thought that was it! Completo! Fini! Finito! Nope.
I realize now that whatever I do, I answer for at some point. I don't mean in a dogmatic, religious, God-shall-smite-thee-for-thy-sins kind of way either; I mean now I must apologize to whoever my behavior(s) effected, and I must also apologize to myself because whatever I did to someone else was done equally to me. When I hit somebody and injured them, I may not have physically hurt myself at that moment, but on the inside I was immediately damaged. Human beings are not meant to be violent toward one another, and my agressive behavior poisoned me each time I acted out.
But enough of the complaining, because I am actually relieved to be where I'm at right now. I've been told that the most inner and outer change occurs between Steps 8 and 12, and I am defintely ready for more improvement in my thoughts! While there has been a huge shift already, I am eager to keep moving forward. I feel like there's a lot of great things and people in my future, and I want to be ready for the oppurtunities with the clearest, strongest, most compassionate and creative mindset I can possibly manage!
I was feeling very resentful, scared and ashamed as I was writing my 8th Step this afternoon, and all these memories were popping up in my head of things that I had done or said that I thought were long gone but were actually just squirming around in shallow graves in my conscience. I was alternating between manically shoveling dirt on top of the disgusting creatures as fast as I could and making a checklist in my head...
"Okay, FINE, I'll make an amends to her BUT I'm only going to message her on Facebook. There's no way I'm going to call her! No WAY!"
"What?! Why him? He treated me like shit first!" *Starts hitting ex boyfriend with shovel*
"She deserved it."
"He doesn't even know I did that, why bring it up now?"
All those thoughts were just my ego acting up, (who gave it a shovel?!) and I am practicing accepting the current egotistical side of me that is to be comforted and also ignored. I realized as I was beginning my amends list that I can purposefully leave people and/or events off, but I'm going to be working these damn Steps for the rest of my life, God willing, and it's all going to come out at some point.
I asked myself: Now, or later? Do I want peace and humility? Do I want happiness? How free do I want to be? I want to be very free! I want to have the ultimate freedom. So I let my cheeks burn and my heart throb as I wrote down my most embaressing amends first, the ones I was determinded to never speak of again. It's not much, but it's a beginning.
