Timely Amends Bring Freedom

Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, you shall by no means come out of there, until you have paid the uttermost farthing.
Matthew 5:25 -26


I'm sure that it has to do with my time working the program of recovery, but when I read these two verses, I immediately think of the importance of Step 9, making amends. I want to come to the place in my spiritual journey where my every motivation is love and not fear, but I must admit that fear and love for my self (self preservation) still come into play as of now. When I worked the steps I had a spiritual awakening, and with that awakening came an understanding of things that had kept me locked in a prison of the mind and soul for years before I ever experienced physical prison.

I first had to understand that there was a problem within me that I could not ever fix. I was broken spiritually, which became physically, emotionally and mentally as well. Jesus said that He had come to heal the brokenhearted. I had heard that my whole life, but I never understood how that applied to the brokenness within me. When I realized and came to believe that God did want to restore me because He loves me, it made it possible for me to surrender my life and will to His care. I could never truly submit my will to God's as long as I could not believe in His love for me because I was always afraid that be and do something that I would not enjoy. Seems silly now, but to make sure that I had a way out of demands that I felt would not make my life pleasurable I always kept a bit of myself under my own control when I "surrendered." I came to learn that conditional surrenders don't work for me spiritually.

Turning my life and will over led to an inventory of my life where I could see the patterns and results of self will run riot in myself. I began to really understand that damage I had done to myself, others and the plan God had for my life. I had held onto my own will and control so that I could enjoy life and had spent most of it miserable wishing to die. What insane behavior. I shared this inventory and received an objective look at my life. I saw the area in my life where selfishness and fear kept me out of the will of God and kept me from being of service to God and others. I gave God permission to remove those things that separated me from Him, asked Him to change me.

This process brought me to step eight where I made a list of the people I had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Now making an amends does not mean saying, "I'm sorry." People in the lives of alcoholics and addicts have heard those words enough for them not to mean anything. It means to settle the debt that is owed. An amends makes right my part of what was wrong, to the best of my ability. It involves a true change in my attitudes and behaviors and gives those I have wronged an opportunity for justice. As we hear so often in the rooms of recovery, it means to clean up my side of the street.

Before recovery I seemed to face the things I had done wrong in one of three ways. I blamed others whenever and wherever possible. It was his fault or her fault or if only this or that hadn't happened I never would have.... If I could shift the blame off of myself I didn't have to face my own selfishness. If I couldn't blame others I worked at manipulating emotions and making excuses. If I could get the person I had wronged or the authority in my life that I faced punishment from to forgive me or show mercy then my consequences didn't hurt as much and I didn't really have to change anything. It cost me nothing. This approach is why the words I'm sorry come to mean nothing from the lips of an addict and alcoholic.

Finally, when all else failed, and the guilt of my shame ate at me to the point where I could not bury it, ignore it or numb it any longer, I would face my fault and punishment. But at this point I seemed to actually want to be punished. Punishment eased my feelings of guilt because I could feel that I had paid the price for what I had done. And that meant I didn't really have to change or do anything else to make things right.

That teacher I cussed out didn't really know or care if my parents punished me for what I did to her. The pain and fear I subjected her to by letting my anger, hurt and fear explode onto her life was not lessened or changed in any way by my being grounded or spanked by my father. Yet because I had been punished, I could live as though I owed her no debt and without any attempt at humbly making things right. So never truly acknowledging my part and settling my debt, I could stay angry and resentful about her part in things. And through that unforgiveness I stayed in prison for years. A prison of self, separated from God, and bound by the chains of addiction.

But when I called later and said I know that the way I handled my life and reacted to things was wrong. I know that hurt and scared [you]. I am doing something to change that, and I want to make things right. I accept responsibility for my part and won't even bring up, much less demand satisfaction or restitution for yours, what restitution can I give you? Something amazing happened, I was set free.

Making that list of the people I had harmed and making my side of things right wherever and whenever possible (except when to do so would injure them or others even more) was the point where my words became actions that brought about a lasting change and freedom in my life. I have since tried to save myself from a return to the prison of guilt and shame and fear that I lived in for so long. Today, when I see that I have wronged another, I try to settle things quickly. I admit my part and pay my debt.

Of course, I am not perfect. There are still amends I have not made. There may be even more where God has not yet brought the memory of my wrong to mind so that I know that I need to make an amends. There may be times when selfishness leads to callousness and I don't realize at first that I have damaged someone. But when I do, I try to settle it before it gets too deeply wrapped in the pain and judgement of the person that I wronged and so that I do not sentence myself to the guilt and shame that avoiding looking at myself has caused in my past.