making amends too early?

Q: How do I explain to my sister that making amends too early in your recover isn’t a great idea?

A: Drug addicts and alcohol addicts (alcoholics) make amends to the people we caused emotional, physical and financial harm before we began our addiction recovery journey. Normies do not understand the addiction insanity that caused us to harm them. Normies do not believe we are no longer insane until we have been clean and sober for quite a while.

It’s OK to start the amends process early as long as we understand that it will take years before we fully clean up the mess we made.

We make amends to clear our own conscience so the shame and guilt we feel is reduced to the point where it no longer chews up our guts so much that it causes relapse.

amends
an act of righting a wrong
He made amends for the damage and no charges were filed.
If you are an addict, never say “I’m sorry”; make amends instead, because everyone who knows that you are an addict already knows you are a sorry son-of-a-bitch.
To make amends, you say “I know that what I did was wrong. What can I do to make it right?” and then you shut up! Say. Nothing. More. Until after you hear a response, if any, to your question. Response or no response, you have made your amends, and it’s time to move on to whatever is next on your list of things to do.

Making amends is a critical part of the recovery process. It is covered explicitly by Steps 8 and 9 of the traditional 12 steps and implicitly in Suggestions 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the 6 Secular Suggestions that help defeat addiction relapse rationally.

AND THAT’S THE TRUTH


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