WEEK 10 - STEP EIGHT
[To the person reading it out. Hold up the blow-up of the diagram when suggested,
but do not read out the contents of the diagram. Just let people see it as you carry on.]
This week we consider Step Eight:
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
Reading: page 76
There is one very important point to make at the start. Step Eight is not about making amends,
it is only about writing the list of those we make amends to. Many of us worried about having
to approach these people. We don�t have to approach anyone in Step Eight. Remembering this
helped us to make the list without fear. (In fact, even when it came to Step Nine, we found,
with the help of a sponsor, that the making of amends was very different and a lot more
straightforward than we had imagined. Like all the other Steps, it is a Step of recovery, not a
Step of suffering!)
All the people on this list should also have appeared on our Step Four list, as we will
feel guilt for the harm we have done. As that reading said: �We have a list of all persons we
have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took
inventory.� This statement echoes that given on page 65 in connection with Step Four, where
it says: �We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set matters straight.� If we
now remembered that you have harmed someone and it was not on our Step Four list as well,
then we take inventory and share it with our sponsors.
It is worth noting that the reverse is not necessarily true � not all the names on our
Step Fours are in our Step Eight list. We haven�t harmed everyone that we resented. If we did
this we would have an absurdly long list.
Strangely, many of us did have a tendency to put too many people down. This was a
result of our extreme self-centredness, which led us to believe that we had a huge impact on
lives of everyone who knew us. So if we refer back to our Step Four, we should be careful not
to let this happen. In fact, to guard against this, many work from memory alone and make a
fresh list.
A simple list of the names of those we had harmed would satisfy the requirements of
this step. However, we found it extremely helpful to include two extra columns for the
following reasons: [hold up the visual]
|
Person
|
THE HARM
|
|
What I did
|
How I would feel if that had been done to me
|
|
My (former)
girlfriend Mary
|
I very angrily called
her a �stupid cow� in
front of her family
|
Humiliated, unloved in the extreme, bitterly hurt, rejected. I
don�t know why, but I must be the sort of person who
deserves this treatment � I am unworthy of love.
|
|
The taxpayers of the
country
|
I claimed benefits
while I was working
� about �10,000
|
Resentful that my taxes were so high because a proportion of
them was going to pay dishonest scroungers
|
It is not always clear whether or not we have harmed people. In order to be able to be
certain that a person should be on our list, we must have a clear picture of two things: what
we did; and the effect that our action (or negligence) had on the other person.
The easiest way to see what we did is actually to write down what we have done.
Things are usually clearer when we see them in black and white.
The easiest way for us to consider how others were affected by our actions it to write
down how we would feel if someone had done the same to us. For example, some of us
wrongly believed that we had harmed everyone that ever got even slightly annoyed with us.
This is not so � causing someone to dislike us doesn�t necessarily mean that we have harmed
them. Sometimes we just have to accept that we have done things that give people good
reason not to like us.
There is another reason for the inclusion of the other columns. When we come to make
amends in Step Nine, we must have a clear picture of the harm caused if we are going to
repair the damage when we make amends. Writing it down in this way is the best way we
have found of providing this necessary information for us.
A number of us found it very difficult to fill out this third column. For us, consideration
of others rarely got beyond being nice to people to try to manipulate them into doing what we
wanted. We were not used to considering how others might feel about themselves as a
consequence of our actions. When we finally did this, it really gave us a sense of the harm we
had caused and perhaps even some compassion for them. It helped to give us the willingness
to repair the damage we had done.
The list of harms is likely to include different sorts of harm:
- Harms caused by failing to do things we have failed to do: these can be of a general
nature, eg �I was not a loving enough son�; or quite specific: �I didn�t speak to my
brother, Fred, for two years because he borrowed my car without asking me first and then
crashed it.�
- Harms we have done: lying, cheating, stealing, hitting, angry abuse/swearing, one-night
stands. Again these can be general descriptions of behaviour or descriptions of specific
incidents.
- All debts
- All crimes committed major and minor (fare dodging, fiddling expenses, for example).
There are no set phrases to put into the final column: you must use everyday language.
However, it is unlikely that banal phrases such as: �fed up�, �pissed off� �unhappy� are
appropriate. You don�t harm someone by just making them fed up. If you have harmed
someone then the language used will indicate a much stronger emotional reaction � bitterly
disappointed, lonely, abandoned, rejected, hated, unworthy of love.
The Big Book says on page 76:�If we haven�t the will to do this, we ask until it comes.�
In other words, if we are still not willing enough to make amends, then we pray for the
willingness.
Note: we do not place ourselves on the list. There is not one single reference to anyone
putting themselves on the list in the Big Book, nor is there any reference to anyone making
amends to themselves in Step Nine. If we were going to put ourselves on the list, then you
would imagine that the Big Book would indicate in its description of Step Nine, how we
make amends to ourselves, as it would be a name on every single list. It does not do this. All
the language refers to people other than ourselves, for example on page 76: �Now we go out
to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past.� and �As we look over the list of
business acquaintances and friends we have hurt��. The whole spirit of these two steps is
one of thought for others, not trying to be �kind to ourselves� as people sometimes describe
this � as the Big Book says on page 84 in reference to the general effect of the programme:
�We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip
away.�
That is the end of the talk. Now I am delighted to hand over to [Name] who will
disclose in a general way, what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.