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.   

8th Step PRINCIPLE: Sympathy

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Forgive me if this principle departs from the one that you associate with the eighth step, but in my experience, this step goes beyond brotherly love, which is the eighth step principle in the clubhouse where I attend the bulk of my meetings.

The eighth step is about relationships---all of them, not only the ones with one's brothers.  Alcohol had an adverse effect on most of my relationships: professional, personal and romantic.  Men and women of all ages appeared on the list of persons who I had harmed, and in this step, for the first time, I began to think seriously about how to set the record straight.

To set the record straight, to effectively take this step, one has to step outside of one's self and consider the consequences of one's drinking from another person's perspective.  One has to think what other people thought and to feel what they felt, which, in the end, is an exercise in sympathy.

Sympathy, not self-pity

Sympathy is about sharing the suffering of another person and offering comfort and encouragement.  Sharing this suffering is tricky for the alcoholic, because the alcoholic is responsible for the suffering that he or she is offering to share.

Accepting responsibility for another person's suffering is not the same as groveling.  Acceptance is marked by humility, not humiliation.  It is not about being absolved of one's actions; it is about pleading guilty in the court of another person's opinion and be willing to serve the sentence rendered.

If one writes an amends list with a particular outcome in mind, then one is setting up one's self for disappointment.  The eighth step is not about having debt forgiven without retribution or rekindling a romance.  It is about establishing a set of guidelines that will allow the alcoholic to be free from a past that cannot be changed to be changed in a future in which the principles of AA are practiced.

Share the suffering; face the future.

In the classic novel Dracula, Bram Stoker observes, "Though sympathy alone cannot alter facts, it can make them more bearable."  Step eight does not change the past; it changes the person who is willing to make amends for the consequences of his or her drinking.   

When writing one's amends list, it is important to be as clear and concise as possible about how one has wronged the other person and what the range of appropriate responses are.  For example, if the nature of the offense is financial, then one should be preparing a proposal that will eventually allow for the debt to be considered paid in full by the wronged party.  If the problem is relational, then the amends make look like a heartfelt apology that includes a promise to move on.

The eighth step requires the alcoholic to step back into the past but not to stay there.  Revisiting the past may be painful, and yet this step is essential to coming to a place in one's sobriety in which he or she neither regrets the past nor wishes to shut the door on it.      

A subtle bond 

Kate Chopin, in the novel The Awakening, writes, "Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love."

Strange, wonderful and magical stuff happens as one prepares to meet his or her past face-to-face.  Understanding one's past from another person's perspective is humbling, and with this humility, one begins to respect one's self and one's neighbor in ways that one was incapable of doing when one's alcoholism raged.

One of the ultimate goals of the eighth step, for me at least, is forgiveness.  By the time that the amends list is complete, one should be beginning to feel better about the person one is now, because one is beginning to notice the difference between one's current and former self.  

Situations that led the former self to run away cowardly suddenly provide the occasion for stepping up and stepping into the opportunities that may be faced courageously.  If this is the life that you want for yourself, then, believe me, I am sympathetic. 

  

       

INTRO: Tenth Step

By the time that a person arrives at the tenth step, the past should be behind him or her.  The first steps helped me to unpack the baggage that I brought with me into AA.  By confronting the past, I conquered fear.  By recognizing how I contributed to the problems that I brought with me into the program, I let go of resentments on which I had fixated previously, and by virtue of these actions, suddenly, there was space in my life for serenity, which alluded me when I was drinking.

The first time that I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, I was sifting through 40 years of anger, disappointments and frustration.  The fourth step, at least in theory, is daunting, but once that step has been taken, and one has set the record straight with one's self, the God of one's understanding and one's neighbors, then one may live freely in the present without looking over one's shoulder.

One of the first big thoughts that I had upon after entering the program was that, "One of biggest threats to my sobriety is my inability to stay in the present."  Every time that I thought about the past, I was afraid of the consequences that I may face, and every time I thought about the future, I became anxious about whether or not I would be able to live the life that I thought that I wanted to live.

The tenth step is about living in the present.  If one does a fourth step every day, which is essentially what the tenth step asks the alcoholic to do, then one's emotional baggage is not able to accumulate and is less likely to express itself in destructive or self-destructive ways.  I think of the tenth step as taking out the trash, and I recognize that one's home smells best when the trash is disposed daily.

I wish that I were disciplined enough to do a thorough tenth step every day.  I am making process toward this goal, but honestly, I am not yet there, even though I have noticed that I feel better in proportion to how frequently I take tenth steps.  I have experimented with different formats from written to spoken ones.  I journaled for a while using the columns laid out in The Big Book, but I did not feel like the events of everyday life were drastic or dramatic enough as the highs and lows of 20 years of active alcoholism.  

The format that works best for me now is based on the Serenity Prayer, which is prayed near the beginning of almost every AA meeting that I have ever attended: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference."  Serenity comes by practicing wisdom, and I practice wisdom by looking at my life since the last tenth step and discerning which situations call for acceptance (the things that I cannot change), which ones call for courage (the things that I can, in fact, change) and how I will live in accordance with this understanding.  

Often the anxiety that I experience in my life is a direct result of trying to place a situation in the wrong column, and forcing situations into the wrong column aggravates, or are further evidence of, alcoholic thoughts and behaviors (i.e., character flaws), the only appropriate response to which is to change my thoughts and behaviors and to ask the God of my understanding to change me.

Amends eventually became instinctive.  One does not have to wait until he or she has been through some formal evaluation to recognize when he or she has offended, insulted or otherwise wronged another person, and in my experience, as one becomes more experienced making apologizes, fewer apologies are necessary, because the filter between one's thoughts and actions gets thicker and thicker.

The tenth step is about being centered in the practice that has brought one to this place in his or her sobriety.  This practice is not without challenges, especially from within, and yet it is effective for today, which, in my experience, is the only place for an alcoholic to be, because this is the only place where serenity resides.       

INTRO: Ninth Step

Only so much in life may be quantified: for example, time and money.  The value of everything else, from heartache to joy, is approximated.  Both numbers and experience are subject to interpretation, and interpretations make the biggest difference when they are shared.

I drank for 21 years, and by the time that I quit, I was spending $5000-$6000 per year on booze.  I am sure that there were fewer amazing experiences than I remember, because truth be told, I do not remember much, and by the time that I arrived in AA, the pattern was rather boring: I drank as soon, and as often, as it was prudent for me to do so, went to sleep/passed out and if it were early enough when I woke up/came to, I would drink more.

The steps helped me to understand how I drank and why I drank.  Even with a plan to stop before I drank too much, once I started drinking, quitting was not an option.  The best and only defense against this phenomenon was, and is, not to take the first drink.  I drank because I had problems, from psychological to interpersonal to social problems, and drinking always made bad situations worse.

When I started feeling better physically and emotionally (and for me, the changes occurred in that order) following my introduction to the program, I started being more honest about myself, my past and how my blatant disregard for self-destruction impacted others.

Guilt is good only to a point.  It helped me to complete the searching and fearless moral inventory, to recognize the part that I played in the drama of my life and to notice patterns that I strive not to repeat in my sober life.  I prayed, and continue to pray, for God to help me to lead a life in which fewer apologies are necessary by changing my emotional default settings.  

Among alcoholics, steps four, five and nine have reputations for being the toughest.  The fourth step is about looking in a well-lit mirror in which one's faults are glaring.  The fifth step requires the alcoholic to trust another person enough to ask him and her to look into the mirror with you, and after consulting with the alcoholic about what he or she sees, the ninth step is about implementing the plan by which the alcoholic will make amends.

The best advice that I received as I prepared to take the ninth step was to take this step without shame.  I was told to say what I had to say.  Be honest.  Accept responsibility.  Do what was necessary to make it right, and look the people to whom I was apologizing in the eyes.

As much as I was taught to dread the ninth step, my experience of it was anti-climatic.  I imagined every encounter to be more confrontational and painful than it actually was.  Figuring out what the amends looked like was the toughest part.  When I was not sure how to right a particular wrong, I asked the person whom I had wronged.  When I was not sure would injure another person, I asked my sponsor.

Most of my amends were face-to-face.  One was a carefully worded letter.  Sometimes money or promises were involved.  The amends helped me to clear my conscience, to be sober, and yet it was also important to me that I do my best to help the other person hear me when I said, "I'm sorry."

The work-related amends were simple and straight-forward conversations that included a few measurable guidelines.  The bulk of the personal amends were offered and accepted verbally.  In some cases, the person(s) to whom I apologized seemed suspicious about whether I was sober, or would stay sober, and in these cases, it was important to me to be as sincere as possible and not allow their responses to spark resentment or fear.

Confession: I am not completely comfortable with "the living amends" language that I often hear in meetings, because for me, making an amends is about helping one to live in the present without being haunted by his or her past.  The notion of a "living amends" troubles because it suggests that the past is always with you.  Of course, it is in one sense, but in another, it is not.

To repeatedly apologize for the same offense fosters codependency in the relationship, and it prevents the alcoholic from leaving the past in the past, not regretting it or shutting the door on it.  Sometimes one is not sure enough is enough, which is the same mindset at the center of the alcoholic's problems, and so, at times, it becomes necessary to hear another alcoholic say, "Consider that amends is complete."

Sobriety, like the wreckage of the past, is difficult to quantity.  I know how long it has been since I had a drink.  I know how much money I have saved by not drinking, and yet I am incapable of placing a number on the value of feeling self-respected and forgiven.  Whatever it is, I think that it is best measured in gratitude.

INTRO: Eighth Step

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.