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: Fourth Step

Blaming is a bad habit.  It is one of many bad habits that I practiced when I came into AA.  I blamed myself for drinking too much.  I blamed my parents for not preparing me to live a better life.  I blamed leaders in my chosen profession for not recognizing my genius, and I dragged the past with me wherever I went.  I was angry, fearful and insecure.  I was confident that I would be able to recover from alcoholism, but I was not sure if I would recover professionally and personally from the consequences of my drinking.

The thought of a searching and fearless moral inventory, which is the action taken in AA's fourth step, did not intimidate me at first.  I was experienced in taking moral inventories.  I was critical of everybody and everything.  I was as least as hard on others as I perceived them to be on me.  

I was encouraged by the fact that the fourth step began with a resentment list.  I was eager to blame my drinking on somebody or something other than me, and yet as I went through this step, column by column, I began to understand that there was nothing fearless or moral about the inventories that I performed in the past.  The blistering critiques of other people that I would share with anybody and everybody who would listen to me were cowardly and immoral, because I was not willing to subject myself to the same scrutiny to which I subjected the ones I blamed for my suffering.

A searching and fearless inventory is similar to looking into a well-lit mirror after an especially hard night drnking.  Evidence of abuse and self-abuse is glaring.  The anger that fuels the making of the resentment list may be justified; it also is cancerous as one strives to be whole, to be at peace, rather than at war, with himself, herself or anybody else.

Anger, as I experience it, is self-protective and defensive.  It is related to the fears that one confronts in the second column of the personal inventory.  When I felt threatened, often because I was insecure, I would lash out in an effort to guard my fragile ego that I would crush with the next drink.

Intimacy is difficult, if not impossible, when one does not know who he or she is, is subject to drastic emotional surges and craves intensity in all situations.  Honesty is a linchpin of the program.  First, one is honest about his or her drinking.  By step four, one is honest about how he or she contributed to related problems.  In my experience, relationships are a huge related problem; romance is an even bigger one. 

I like the fact that AA uses "columns" language when taking this inventory, because, architecturally speaking, a column allows a structure to stand.  Without columns, structures fall.  For the alcoholic, life without anger, resentment, fear and unhealthy relationships makes drinking far less attractive than it is with them.  The possibility of ever drinking moderately again is smashed in the first step.  With this step, the columns that support one's drinking tumble, too.                

The fourth step is about noticing patterns that lead to bad places emotionally and changing them.  For me, it was important to ask, "Why did I go to these bad places emotionally in the first place?"  By answering this question as openly and honestly as possible, I noted that it often had to do with thinking more highly of myself than I ought to think and/or feeling as if I did not measure up to the standards by which I judged others.

When the patterns started changing, there were fewer instances of anger, fear and relationship dysfunction to report.  When there are fewer problems, there are fewer opportunities to blame.  Noticing one's role in creating the problems that do exist becomes easier as one experiences more balance in his or her life, and this balance is made possible by not insisting on dragging the weight of the past wherever one goes.