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. 

  

       

7th Step PRINCIPLE: Humility

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

American author Ernest Hemingway says, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

Hemingway was an alcoholic, who committed suicide in 1961.  He struggled with depression and with drinking to excess, which, in my experience, may go hand-in-hand.

Alcohol is a depressant (I am surprised how many men and women who are in AA do not know this fact when they arrive).  I do not know which comes first: alcoholism or depression.  By the time that a person suffers enough to step into that first meeting, it does not matter.

Admitting that one has a problem takes time.  So does arriving at a place in which one is willing to change and to be changed.


Now that one is entirely ready...
Step six prepares the way for step seven.  While I am not sure if anyone is ever entirely ready to have God remove one's defects of character, I do think that one comes to a place in one's sobriety in which one has to decide whether to open one's self to the future or to be haunted by the past.

For the clinically depressed person, opening one's self to the future is easier said than done, and yet for those who ask for help, especially those who ask for professional support, there is hope.

Knowing one's self and the God of one's understanding helps one to understand his or her place in the universe.  By this point in the steps, one usually has enough experience, strength and hope to know that the God of his or her understanding, who is more powerful than alcohol, is more powerful than his or her shortcomings.  


Ask.
Why would any of us be reluctant to ask God to remove our shortcomings?  Because many of us are naturally fearful.  We would rather be afraid than free, because fear is all that we know.

Fear of drinking again kept me sober for a while, but fear of drinking again is not enough when I bulge with self-pity or pride.

For me, it is helpful, when taking this step, to think about the alternatives to the shortcomings that I am asking God to remove, because when the shortcomings are removed, something has to be planted, watered and nurtured in place of them.  For example, I pray that I will be more fulfilled than self-pitying and more humble than proud.


Welcome balance.
Humility, in my experience of the program, is that the heart of AA.  Without an ounce of humility, one is incapable of taking the first step, much less the next six.

Hemingway's quotation applies here: humility is about striving to be superior to one's former self not to any other human being.  My former self (and sometimes current self), my drunk self, is self-pitying and proud.

When I am pumped up with pride, I think of myself more highly than I ought to think.  When I am caught in a web of self-pity, I look for someone other than the God of my understanding to lift me out of despair.

Since I have been in AA, I am becoming more balanced, because I am beginning to understand, practice and remember that the highs are not as high as they seem initially; neither are the lows.

I am better able to place life in perspective, because I am less likely to exaggerate the significance of any given day.  If I stay sober through whatever problems that I face today, then I will have a chance at being happier, more joyous and freer tomorrow.

INTRO: Seventh Step

The wisdom that other alcoholics share at meetings is essential to recovery.  In the beginning of my AA experience, I was desperate, which, among other things, meant that, for the first time in a long time, I was at a place in which I was willing to listen.  Almost all of my adult life, I thought that I deserved more than I had, and yet by the time that I crawled into AA, hoping against hope for a better life, I recognized that I did not know everything, and I wondered if what I did know would help me to feel good about myself and the mark that I was making in, and on, the world.

To quote another alcoholic, who spoke eloquently in one of the first meetings that I attended, "I felt like a piece of shit in the center of the universe."  I felt badly about myself and judged myself by standards that would not allow these feelings to change, and yet I craved the spotlight and believed that if people really knew me, they would be able to find something amazing in me that I could not, or would not, find in myself.

I was humiliated when I came into AA, and the distinction between humiliation and humility may be helpful here.  Humiliation is not just feeling like a piece of shit; it is knowing that others share one's low opinion of one's self and fixating on this knowledge.  Being handcuffed, bailed out of jail and appearing before a judge confirmed that I was not better than anybody else.  The law that applied to people that I dismissed as less sophisticated than me also applied to me, and I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not any better at obeying the law than I was at moderating my drinking.  Something had to change.  I had to ask for help.

Humility, which is one of the objectives of the seventh step, enables a person to be comfortable in his or her own skin without having to set himself or herself apart as better than the rivals that he or she manufactures out of thin air.  Being set apart leads to feelings of loneliness.  Humility allows one to be part of a group without establishing a place in the hierarchy.

A humble person is comfortable on stage and working behind the scenes.  He or she finds value in everything that he or she does and in the world around him or her and is fulfilled by whatever it is he or she is doing.  A humble person is not weighed down by guilt or shame.  This person is open-minded and opened-hearted enough to accept whatever the God of his or her understanding gives to him.

The action called for the seventh step is to "humbly ask God to remove his (or her) shortcomings."  This step assumes that the person in recovery is increasingly comfortable with the God to whom he or she was introduced step three and that this person is no longer in denial about the guilt, pride, shame, arrogance and fear that led to the consequences that led him or her into the program.  The trust that one places in another person in step six is extended to God in step seven.

In my experience, one's faith in himself or herself grows in proportion to his or her faith in God and in other human beings and vice versa.  This faith is made possible through self-awareness, the beginning of which is the searching and fearless moral inventory in step four.  For me, saying what I had to say to the God of my understanding was not as difficult as saying what I had to say to another person, because the God of my understanding was with me in the past, is with me now and will be with me in the future.  Plus, I did not worry about the God of my understanding saying anything to anybody about what I confided in this God.

Obviously, I was only beginning to trust again, and yet by this stage in recovery, it seemed as if life was beginning again, which signaled a drastic change in my thoughts and feelings.  I was not as anxious as I used to be.  When I came into AA, it seemed as if life was crashing around me, but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, though I am sure that it was by virtue of the steps, I started believing that something beautiful could be built from the wreckage of the past.

    

INTRO: Second Step

By the time that I arrived in AA, it was difficult for me to deny that I was an alcoholic.  The evidence was overwhleming: I was powerless over alcohol; life had become unmanageable.  In addition to the DUI, I was making questionable decisions professionally and personally without fully suffering the consequences of my actions.  I thought that if I were given a chance to succeed, then I would, and the quality of my life would drastically improve.

Obviously, I was in denial---not about being an alcoholic but about related problems.  Alcohol was a problem, but it was not the only one.  I drank to cope with feelings of disappointment and anxiety, and in so doing, created more problems with which I coped with alcohol.  I am not sure which came first: the alcohol or the problems.  It does not matter.  To be well, both have to be addressed.

The first step is about admitting that one is powerless over alcohol, that one cannot drink under any circumstances.  The second step is about trusting: 1) that something more powerful than alcohol exists; 2) that this power is willing to help; and 3) that this help includes restoring the alcoholic to sanity.  

The stumbling blocks in this step are theological and psychological.  Plenty of people in AA arrive with religious baggage.  Bad experiences with religious institutions or people representing them have led to anger, cynicism and fear (which contribute to other problems).  Trust does not come naturally, and yet without help, one has no chance of overcoming a power greater than himself or herself, like alcohol.  Self-sufficiency is self-defeating.  In the end, the second step is about asking for help whether this help comes from God, a group or one of its members.

The problems that I was looking solve when I came into the program were practical ones.  I wanted to stop drinking.  I wanted to be sure that I was gainfully employed and that my family was intact.  I wanted to feel better about myself and the direction in which my life was headed.  I was tired of spiraling downward.

The suggestion that I was insane offended me.  I had baggage with religious institutions, but even in the depth of my illness, I believed in God.  I prayed.  I read self-help books and met with therapists (whose access to the truth was distorted by my twisted version of it).  Surely, I was not insane, as AA suggests that I am, and yet given the number of times that I drank and expected different results, I came to believe that I was.

As I sobered up, I began to see the past more clearly.  I remembered embarrassing stories.  I wondered what I was thinking when I made some of these decisions that I regretted, and I questioned whether my judgment was better than anybody else's.  I started asking for help, and in so doing, acknowledged that I did not know everything, that I had more than one problem.  I began thinking of myself more as a sick person than as a bad person, and the quality of my life---and my problems---began to improve.  A power greater than myself was beginning to work in my life.  I was being humbled in the process, and humility sets the stage for gratitude.