Previously, I noted that was I raised in home where God was like Santa Claus. Praying was about asking for what one wanted and then trying to persuade God to provide by practicing piety. When God did not act quickly enough when I asked for something, I appealed to Mom, who was, and is, always looking for an occasion to shop. She almost always gave me what I asked for, provided that I completed whatever emotional obstacle course that she set before me.
By the time that I arrived at the eighth step, I was familiar with the notion of making a list. I did not expect the resentment list that I made when taking the fourth step to be the one that I would be checking twice when I started noting who I had wronged. Returning to this list after identifying and examining the destructive and self-destructive behavioral patterns in my life was a humbling experience---almost as humbling as starting to ask God to remove these defects of character every day. I sought change, and yet I was not completely sure of the change for which I was asking or what I expected. For the change to be lasting, it had to seem authentic; it had to be authentic.
What I had to watch, and to be prepared to change, then and now, are actions that are motivated by self-pity or pride, which, as looked at that first resentment list, more often than not, contributed to the resentments that, more often than not, were expressions of fear or feelings of failure related to ridiculously high expectations. While considering who I had harmed with my sponsor, saying that this person or that person deserved my wrath was not an acceptable response, because harboring grudges does nothing to promote one's sobriety.
Of course, some anger and actions are impossible to justify, even by an alcoholic. Revisiting the resentment list, I created a list of people I had wronged. Then I was asked to create a list of people I had wronged who had not wronged me. At first, I was not sure that I could come up with one, but as I looked at how my resentments affected innocent bystanders, sometimes years after the fact, I was able to put together a list to which I would add names as I remembered them, sometimes in the middle of the night, often first thing in the morning (and now that the haze of active alcoholism has passed, I still remember stories).
Please note that making a list is the first half of this step. Becoming willing to make amends to all whom one has wronged is the second half. AA recognizes that it takes a while for obsessive personality types to warm to the notion of change, especially changes in them or in their circumstances. For example, one comes to believe in God in the second step; the searching and fearless moral inventory in step four is separate from, and a prelude to, sharing the results in step five. All that step eight requires in terms of making amends is a willingness to do so.
It is surprising to note that step eight is the first place in the steps where the term "willingness" appears, especially when one considers how many open discussion meetings are based on the subject of willingness. Until this point, the only hint of willingness is in step three when one turns one's will and life over to the care of the God of his or her understanding. One's willingness to be cared for, which differs from being given everything that one asks for, precedes one's willingness to make amends so that one may be assured of comfort as one takes the next step toward freedom from a past that cannot be changed in anticipation of a future in which one will be changed by the God of his or her understanding.
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