9th Step PRINCIPLE: Discipline

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, 

except when to do so would injure them or others.

Greek historian Thucydides observes that, "Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage."

AA requires courage from the meeting throughout the 12 steps.  Courage is required for one to be honest about how much and how often one drinks when one comes into the program, and it takes courage to trust anyone or anything from a sponsor to an invisible God of one's understanding.

The courage that one begins practicing in the fourth step applies to the ninth step, which leads one out of the safety of clubhouses and meetings and into the wreckage of one's past where one meets the persons that one has wronged face-to-face without alcohol to help one to cope with the confrontation or to help one to project or to blame one's faults onto another person.

The ninth step is about assuming responsibility for past actions.  It is about taking one's medicine while remembering that the objective of taking medicine is to be made complete and whole; it is about being healed.

Be disciplined.

Children are disciplined by parents out of a desire to help them to better themselves.  Some parents are abusive, and their children are broken at an early age.  Discipline, at its best, however, builds up; it does not tear down.

Before I came into AA, I did enough tearing down for a lifetime, and while I suffered consequences, I was not built up in the process (much of which was my fault).  By looking at the past and by looking at myself in the mirror, I recognized that it was time for me to accept myself as I was, to embrace myself as may be and to ask for forgiveness.

It is important, I think, when taking the eighth and ninth steps, to be as specific as possible.  If a debt is to be forgiven, then both the debtor and the person owed must be clear about the scope and nature of the debt.  

If the problem is financial, then a lump sum or payment plan should be discussed.  If the problem is relational, then perhaps the only appropriate amends is to live a sober life.  If infidelity is involved, then it important to remember that the point of this step is to constructive and not destructive, especially when the well being of families may be at risk.    

Self-discipline.

Accepting the discipline of other parties as punishment for crimes for which one is willing to plead guilty at last is respectable; being able to avoid similar circumstances in the future is self-respectable.  The ninth helps one to notice patterns and to retrace steps that one does not wish to revisit---ever. 

Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel says, "Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."  By saying "no" to the impulse to simply move on from one's past without making things right the ones whom he or she has harmed, one's dignity grows.

The same discipline that helps one not to drink also helps him or her to stay out of trouble in personal, social and professional relationships.  One does not stop thinking like an alcoholic just because one quits drinking.  For me, I have stopped acting like alcoholic, for the most part, but I have not yet stopped thinking like one. 

Act first.

In AA, actions come first.  In the first step study that I attended, the leader of the group stated repeatedly that "AA is an action program."  

The ninth step is about taking actions that bust wide open any pride or self-loathing that one has yet to turn over to the God of his or her understanding.

The actions that I took involved everything from saying that "I am sorry" to spending money.  I consider both investments.  Some of the people to whom I apologized I will never see again, but if I do, then I will be able to look them in the eyes.  

Sure, I had to hear people share stories about me that I did not want to remember, but remembering them and responding to them like an adult, rather than as a child, I am hopeful that I will not repeat them, and yet when I am wrong, I will be able to acknowledge my wrongdoing and to act constructively and accordingly, because, at last, I have practice accepting discipline.