Getting My Steps In

I know the last time I touched base, I was wrapping up and giving my reflections on steps four and five, where I made a list of all of my character defects and shared them with my sponsor. And I finished those. It was a great rewarding experience. Just like I had hoped it would. And before I knew it, I blinked and I was ahead a bunch of steps. Uh, the next step was step six in my 12 step program, which has, I was entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

And it was just a matter of doing some readings, talking about the concept of being ready to have those characters. Defects like truly removed and what that meant. Uh, you know, the biggest thing for that for me was that, you know, if I wanted to have my selfishness removed, you know, that it's not just a matter of asking GABA, being prepared to put in the work that it would take to have that.

And once I was kind of prepared mentally for that and what it would take step seven was humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings, which was pretty easy compared to how hard some of the, you know, lists and step four and five were step six and seven. Believe I went through with my sponsor in one or two weeks. Of course, then I got to the ones that you hear all about in the movies and TV.

Whenever you hear someone working in their 12 step program, and that is step eight, making a list of all persons, we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Uh, which then snowballs into step nine, what you make those amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. It was time to about those character defects from step four and five that were so much fun to go through and picking up from.

There was a lot of the obvious harms that I inflicted upon others. And then I use that to kind of make that list of names and how I had harmed them. I had to add a couple people and skip over some people that were involved in my defects, but weren't necessarily harmed again. I mean the biggest one in all of them was the damage I did to myself. However, there were, you know, not just Xs, but also people in my life like my family, um, my husband and my friends that I needed to make amends to.

And then I wrote out all my amends thinking that I'll have finished it as quickly as I went through step six and step seven and brought it out to my sponsor. And they pointed out that my amends were not amends. They were apologies. And the fact that those were two different things, completely blew my mind. Um, I always thought that, you know, step eight and nine was all about writing out, you know, I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry. I did that. I'm sorry. I did the other thing.

I'm sorry for all the horrible crappy things that I did to you. Um, and it ends up upon closer inspection of the definitions between amends and apologies that while on apology is more of something you do. Uh, mens are the actions that you're taking to do better. Uh, and that kind of blew my mind more just because I wasn't sure then how to, you know, significantly like make amends to people because. You know, using my husband and his example, I did all my harms to him.

And the way that I'm making amends in terms of like the actions that I'm putting in are just being better today, being more, you know, being faithful, being devoted, being trustworthy, being caring, being loving, staying sober, uh, you know, working my steps, holding myself accountable and. I'm doing all those things. I've been doing all of those things. And so in some ways, depending on how you might look at it, I've already made my immense or I'm actively making my amends on a daily basis.

However, it didn't feel right to not have a conversation formally where I was talking about my amends. And so I ended up not only going to my sponsor, who reflected with their sponsor, but also a lot of fellows who are in the program on how they did it. And ultimately I liked the idea of.

You know, reflecting back on the actions that I'm taking to make amends to the people that I've harmed in the past, I'm writing them out address to those people and to being very careful not to say, sorry, but actually write about, uh, you know, how I feel about the things that I did and what I'm doing to make them better. And so my amends went from where just, you know, Rather than saying, I'm sorry for this. I'm sorry for that.

And then more of, you know, I regret the pain that I caused you because I was dishonest on faithful, you know, et cetera. And then verbalizing, you know, I am making it up to you by doing this, that, and the other thing on a daily basis and being the person that you deserve. As well as the person that I deserve to be myself.

And then I got to get to step nine where I made those direct demands to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others, which with that second part rolled out. So, you know, the, the young child or the young adults that I had the failed adoption with, because it would expose us reaching out to them again or trying to find them again. And some axes, I simply just couldn't locate.

Cause unfortunately I didn't, wasn't able to remember their last names or find them on social media. Um, however, I was able to make direct amends to the majority of the people on my harms list. And it was a rewarding experience that certainly was harder for people that I cared more about. Um, but in general, you know, I was blessed that I got such a warm reception from the people who did reply or didn't get. And with that, I mean, that was a third of the program and one episode.

So I will leave it at that for now. I am getting ready to move into step 10, uh, and then 11 and 12 with my sponsor over the coming weeks. So I'll be sure to update you on that as well as just moving. In these audio diary episodes that will come out every week or two on Mondays. I'm trying to fill in some additional interviews cause I had such a large pipeline, but that pipeline is coming to a close. So I am now resuming my search for guest speakers for upcoming episodes.

Uh, if you're interested in sharing your story, getting involved with the show, we would love to hear from you and have you on a future episode, you can do that by emailing me at gay. At gmail.com. That's G a Y a [email protected]. Like to thank you all for listening, please rate and review. If you found this information helpful and be sure to follow us wherever you're listening.

So you get new episodes when they come out every Monday for these audio diaries and every Thursday for guest interviews. And until next time stay sober friends.