Additionally, making amends reinforces an individual’s commitment to sobriety and personal growth. Making amends is a fundamental part of the 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). It is an act of reconciliation and restitution that allows individuals in recovery to repair the damage their addiction may have caused to themselves and those around them.
Examples of Making Amends in Recovery
- As a part of my recovery process, I have reflected on my behavior and realized that I have hurt you in the past though my___________.
- Making living amends is not just about apologizing to your friends and family.
Living amends can take a lot of time but can be some of the most rewarding. It may be difficult to accept that you’re not always going to be able to make amends to people who you’ve wronged in some way. Some might be too tested by prior behaviors and actions that they simply need space. Or the people you need to apologize and make amends to are no longer living. When making amends it is important that you focus on your behaviors only and your amends.
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Notice the words “right to resentment” and “underserved qualities” in there? It is about what we do despite that wrongdoing, “abandoning our right to resentment . . . “. Making amends does not undoing the wrongdoing, just as forgiveness doesn’t undo the wrongdoing. Instead, it is an action we take to compensate for what we have done. The FHE Health team is committed to providing accurate information that adheres to the highest standards of writing.
Guilt and Grief: Making A Living Amends
They may have been hurt in ways that you were not able to identify when preparing to make amends. Making amends does not necessarily depend on your ability to connect with a person or how they respond to you. When choosing to make amends, exercise careful consideration of yourself and others to ensure you avoid causing further harm in your recovery efforts. Before you decide who to approach and how you intend to make amends, reflect on your efforts at recovery and the intent behind making amends. We believe everyone deserves access to accurate, unbiased information about mental health and addiction.
Essentially, it means making a radical shift in the way you live and sticking to that. When you make living amends, you make genuine changes to support your emotional and physical sobriety. In living amends doing so, you promise to live a sober and honest life and never return to your old ways of lying and hurting the people you love the most.
Mental Health Services
To learn more about addiction recovery, including AA, reach out to Silver Mist Recovery. Ninety percent of the time, I keep my mouth shut, but I am my son’s mother. I have a responsibility to parent him and speak out for his best interests. Early in my recovery, I learned neither my son nor my husband was listening to anything I said. Accept responsibility for the impact of your actions on others. Surrounded by hills and forest, Serenity Knolls is a private campus providing rustic cabins, 12-Step treatment approach, and a family program.
One of the most common reasons people want to make living amends is to correct past wrongs. Living amends bridges the gap between living in shame and regret and finding forgiveness. The origin of living amends in modern use relates to addiction recovery and substance abuse treatment. However, in the context of grief recovery, David Kessler, in his book Finding Meaning, talks about the importance of living amends as a tool for grief healing.
The List Of Wrongs
Perhaps the person is no longer living, or you no longer have contact with them and reestablishing contact would cause more harm. An apology is expressing regret or saying sorry for causing harm to someone. Amends often include apologies, but they go beyond words. Making an amend means taking accountability and action to repair any damages done. Through these restorative actions, you demonstrate your commitment to change.
Living amends, in this event, can include making changes to the behaviors contributing to the falling out between the survivor and the person they owed an apology to. For example, let’s say a mother didn’t make an effort to escort her children to the school bus stop. One of her children is killed crossing the street on their own even after telling their mother that they were afraid to cross the busy street alone.