Meditations on "Amends"

One of the central pillars of the recovery world is the sharing of our experience, strength, and hope.

Many of us know from personal experience and from what we have seen and heard from others that the consequences of a lifestyle of drug or alcohol misuse are painfully destructive.

All of us who have weathered the storms of an addictive lifestyle know that our days were filled with trials of one sort or another.

Making amends is a responsibility we must take very seriously if we want to protect our sobriety.

Having a loving relationship with God and praying with Him about everything we do is the solid foundation for those who seek to build their lives with God in recovery.

When we begin the recovery process we are often overwhelmed by the guilt and shame of the mess we have made of our lives.

Making amends requires a will to do so. Some of us struggle to be sorry for our harmful actions towards another and want to justify ourselves for what we did.

An important part of living with God in recovery is coming to an accurate view of what went wrong in our relationships and doing our part to make things right.

We are just moving into summer and hopefully looking forward to long days lounging around in the sunshine.

Seeking out those to whom we need to make amends can be intimidating.

In “How It Works” we read and hear the following words read regularly at meetings: Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.

In the Big Book of AA, we are advised to use discretion in knowing how much time and attention to give to one situation versus the time others might benefit from if given more of our time and support.