Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 48 (Exploring Step 9 of the Twelve Steps of Adult Children of Alcoholics)

In today's episode, I discuss the ninth step from Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families World Service Organization's 12 Steps.

Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Before you go out into the world and start making amends, think through why you're making the amends. Who is it for? You or them?

In this week's podcast I'll also go through the Golden rule and apply the Platinum rule to step 8.

What's the Platinum rule?

"Do unto others as they would want to be done to them."

And when you're going through your list of people to make amends to, do you have yourself on the list? Might be worth putting yourself down and thinking about what making amends to yourself would mean. You might be surprised with the wealth of emotional growth and happiness that will come from that.

More Information about Let Go and Be Free:

Want to learn more about Let Go and Be Free? Check out the Let Go and Be Free book series.

I’m not a medical expert. If you need help, please reach out to a medical professional.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Let Go and Be Free podcast, a podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of the Let Go and Be Free: 100 Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics series. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, letgoandbefree.com. And with that, let's get on with the show.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the let go and be free podcast. I am your host Ron. And for this week, we are going to review step nine of adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families World Service Organization. If this is the first time that you were listening to this podcast, and you're just kind of just diving right in, you're like Step nine, what the heck is he talking about?

For Step nine, I'm gonna read that in a second like to read it twice so that we have time to kind of process it and think it. If you haven't heard some of the previous episodes, I recommend that you download or stream you know, online again, depending if you listen on Spotify, or if you listen on the website.

Or if you're subscribed through Apple podcasts, go back and listen to some of the previous episodes, because I think they will help you guide you through the previous steps. So with that said, I'm going to start off by reading step nine. Again, this is from the official adult children.org website. Step nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them, or others.

So I'll say it again. Step nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them, or others. So if you recall from last week's episode, step eight basically had us kind of breaking down and making a list of all the people we had may have harmed over the course of you know, whatever our lifetime in relation to our relationships, or friendships, our family, our co workers, friends, etc.

And I had recommended writing that list, pausing for a moment, taking some time out to think about it. And then to go and think about something else for a couple of days, come back to your list. Look at it again, see if you still felt that the people that you listed on there that you didn't need to make amends to them. Or were you kind of focusing on maybe some ulterior motives, some of those people, maybe out of selfish or egotistical reasons, you wanted to get in touch with them just to see their how they were doing. Maybe it was an old ex someone you've been romantically with in the past, and you kind of like, well, I gotta go through the 12 steps. And it says, I need to kind of make amends to such people really think about why you were making that outreach to somebody and making that event. So with this step, the second part specifically says except when to do so would injure them, or others.

And I think that's really important to focus on. So, you know, often in our limited view, we may think of something and go Well, you know, if somebody else was doing this, I wish they would reach out to me and I would be open to that, you know, kind of focusing on the golden rule, the golden rule, treat others as you would, you know, have them treat you like you want to be treated. me say that, again. You want to treat someone else the way you would like to be treated. There we go. Got that. However, in this case, I would recommend using the platinum rule, and we've talked about the platinum rule in the past. And as a reminder, the platinum rule is treat someone else the way they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated and you impose your thoughts on them. You go that extra step, a bit of empathy.

And you say, You know what, maybe this person that I was romantically involved with in the past, maybe they don't really want me to reach out to them. They specifically told me, good luck, adios never want to see you again, again, I'm using a very exaggerated example. But there are cases in which to reach out to somebody else and say, I want to make an amends to you. You know, one, what exactly does that mean? To? Does that person really want to hear from you? And I think that's a very honest question to ask yourself, and to also think about it before you do any action. This is something that you really want to do something that you're making an amend, you're not doing something just to make yourself feel good to take your own guilt, you know, away, that's not the purpose of the step. So that kind of complicates matters, just because it is not easy to come up with a list of people.

And then to say, Well, do you know, do I want to reach out and make an amends to somebody? And how do you actually do that? What What does making an amend mean? You know, going up to someone and saying, I'm so sorry for how badly I treated you five years ago? Like, is that really helpful? person look at you like, what, what are you doing, and then you're like, Well, I'm trying to go through this 12 Step thing, and it says, I need to do this, that that's not going to be productive for the person, and it's not going to be productive to you. Again, this is my personal take on this step. So let me be clear, I'm, I'm taking my years of experience of how I've used these steps, and how I have found them to be helpful.

And when it comes to making amends, really want to make certain that the person that I've reached out to, you know, I'm reaching out to them for a particular purpose, meaning, if I have a means of making amend, you know, it could be something simple, you know, such as, you know, look, I really didn't listen to you when you needed to be listened to at, you know, this particular time in our lives. And I apologize for that, you know, I'm working really hard on myself and trying to make a difference. And I just want you to know that, that wasn't right of me, I want to own up to that and take responsibility for that. I can't go back and change the past. But like, if you have a relationship with this person, now you can say, you know, moving forward, this is what I'm going to do, you know, in the example that I just gave me to listen to you, and a shut up and listen to when you need to be heard.

When you say to me, I really want to share what's on my mind, that I in my opinion, would be a good way of making an event, not, again, having a laundry list, and quickly checking things off like well, I reached this person out on Facebook, and I call this person and left the message. And I did this do that. That to me is examples of how best not to make amends with people. Because again, I like to when I was going through this and times I've done this in my life, I want to put myself in their shoes, I want to have empathy and think does the person even want to hear from me, you know, sometimes the silence of respecting that person's privacy, or the choices that they've made now and their new life is the amend meaning you are respecting their personal space, you're not trying to then get mesh with them again, or drag up old feelings or old memories. Which having that type of conversation with them could potentially do. You know, in in a very simple example, let's say that you were with someone romantically. And years later, they're married to somebody else, you stepping in and trying to make amends with them. You know about things that happened five years ago, and they're married and trying to move on with their life that just, you know, may not be respectful to a person's relationship with their spouse, you might be dredging up old memories and old feelings where they don't necessarily need to be dredged up.

You know, I've heard people have written letters to people, and they've poured their soul out to people and these letters, again, which makes the person you know, who's making the amends feel better. But how helpful useful is it really to the person that you're supposed to be making the amends to? And again, it's easy to jump, you know, into your mind and think, Well, if this person reached out to me, I would like that, that might be what you want. But that may not necessarily be what another person wants. So it is really important to think through the step.

And to document like when you're writing down, you know, the previous steps, step eight, the list of all the people when you actually think of like, well, how do I actually make this happen? What does that it exactly mean in, what do we need to do to make the amends, especially says whenever possible, and then that last part unless you're gonna hurt them, you know where you're going to cause other hurt to other people. And there are some complications that need to be taken into consideration, you know, you may want to make an amend to a parent that is struggling with addiction, they may or may not be ready to hear that, you bringing up your feelings and trying to have a rational conversation with them, it just may not be the time meaning that they want to have that discussion with you, they may not be in a position to hear that. And then if you push it, are you are you injuring them?

Are you meaning are you causing more harm? Are you just dredging more things up and more fights and disagreements are going to take place? This is a complicated one. And I can see it's very subjective for each person. Meaning, you know, this might be one that you really do want to think about where if you're in therapy, you might want to talk about it with your therapist and be like, well, you know, I'm thinking I can do these type of amends, you know, and some of the amends might be you changing your behavior of how you interact with people, you don't actually have to say a word to them. You know, if you treat someone a certain way, if you always disrespect them, or write them off, you don't listen to them, you know, you could just change your behavior. And then they will see that you're treating them differently. The actions speak louder than words sometimes. least that's what you know, my mom used to say to me, she used to say that my father used to apologize to her all the time and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And sorry. But then the same behavior, dysfunctional behavior, and patterns would happen again, and again and again. And she just got sick of you know, I'm sorry, it meant nothing to her. She doesn't want to see those words, or hear those words ever again. She just wants someone to actually change their behavior that really got me when she shared that with me when you know, when I was growing up as a teenager, that I realized, like, Hmm, you know, just saying I'm sorry, but then having nothing behind, it isn't really going to do anything at all, it's just going to probably create more problems. Again, why are you looking to make the amends with the person? How can you do that, whenever possible, again, as the step says, so you don't injure them, or others. Now, there's also a flip side of this step that I wanted to focus on. And it deals with yourself, you know, that list number eight, when we make a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends? Did you put yourself on the list you may not have?

And I'm asking you to think why you did. Because you're probably have done things in your life where you regret and you treat yourself badly. You know, maybe, again, I'm just using some examples. Maybe you were too needy in a relationship, and you put your own needs aside and took care of other people. And you didn't spend the time strengthening your own, you know, Body Soul spirit, you basically always put other people's needs in front of your own. Well, what if you were to make amends to yourself? What if the all persons as listed in Step eight means you are included in that? How would you make amends to yourself? What exactly does that mean? You know, because you look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm sorry, I don't think that's what this step means. But when it comes to we've talked about this many times, over the course of the party is setting boundaries, and might be a really good place to start. Are you codependent with someone? Are you in meshed with someone? Do when they feel sad? You feel sad? You know? Are you emotionally entangled? Essentially? That's what I'm saying getting to the core? And if so, why? Are you doing that? Are you avoiding your own problems? Are you like, liking the feeling of being needed? by someone?

Do you feel like if you saved the day, that you have purpose in life? What if that were to go to go away? What if you were to put up those boundaries, healthy boundaries, and say, You know what? It's not my role to solve that problem for you. You have to solve that problem. What would you then do with that extra time? What would you do with your uncomfortable feelings that you have of like, Hmm, I feel strange now. I'm usually doing the rescuing. But no one needs me to rescue. How do I take care of myself? How do I listen to myself and give myself the space that I need? What exactly would you do? with that extra time you go on a walk, would you do meditation? Would you read a book? How can you make that amend? You know, to yourself, I think that's, that's something that's really important.

And again, I don't want to focus on like an egotistical or narcissistic aspect of taking care of yourself. That's not what I'm saying this step, it's just often those who I've met who have grown up in dysfunctional or alcoholic family and, you know, environment, typically, they're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, hyper responsible to take on more at work, take on more on the on family life, swallow down, you know, feelings that they have until either they explode or internalize it in other ways, you know, unhealthy ways. What could those unhealthy ways be? You know, eating too much drinking too much or addicted to adrenaline or, you know, addicted to being pulled into other people's problems. And that whole can codependency and a measurement, you know, dance, so that way you feel needed. Like, what if you were to work on those things and make amends with yourself. So that way, moving forward, you can have healthier relationships, stronger boundaries, between you and someone else. Again, boundary doesn't mean that you are putting a force shield 30 feet thick around yourself and nothing can get in. That's not what I'm trying to say. It's just a healthy boundary of asking yourself a question. Is this healthy for me? Is it true? Fill in the blank, you know, could be something like, is it true that, you know, someone doesn't love me? Is it true, that XYZ, you know, didn't happen?

And I should feel bad about myself? You know, is this harmful for me? Yes, or No? Having those honest conversations with yourself and building up that boundary level, it takes time, and it takes work. And it's important for you to practice that it's like a muscle. If you grew up in an environment where there was a lot of yelling and screaming, and we'll say drug use and emotional abandonment, and you were trying to just figure out, where are you? You know, I've seen I've seen people in, you know, groups, ACOA groups tell stories about how their parents were never there for them, you know, emotionally, they were too busy, you know, getting high drinking, give blaming others, you know, they're their boss at work, because of, you know, they lost their job when it was really their own problem, because they couldn't show up on time, all kinds of problems.

And when you're in a situation for years, and you're a kid, and you're not getting your emotional needs met, you then find ways, different coping mechanisms, you know, one of those could be, you become that hyper responsible one, you're the one that's always coming in on the white horse to save the day. Or you may have done the exact opposite, maybe you rebelled. And, you know, you just withdrew and did not want anybody to be near you. But at the same time, by putting up such thick walls around yourself, you can never really feel love, ever really feel connection with other people. You're always at arm's length with people. So when you're making that list, and you're going through and you're thinking about, how do you treat other people, there's also the flip side of the coin, how do you treat yourself? How do you feel about you know, what you're going through? What have you learned? If you're listening to these, you know, these podcast episodes about the steps? Are you upset or angry about any of them? Are you confused? Write it out, talk it out, talk to your therapist, talk, talk to a trusted friend. You know, writing your own journal, there's ways that you can process this again, words have power, and for you to be able to feel an emotion, connect a word with it. And process that is a tool in your toolkit that allows you to process memory and your emotions in a healthy way. Instead of swallowing it and repressing it or lashing out.

They're typically, you know, the two paths that someone who grew up in an adult child you know, I'm sorry, an alcoholic or dysfunctional family fall into as an adult child. They just did not see mirrored emulated while growing up healthy ways of solving problems. In fact, problems may never have been solved. It just might have been conflict after conflict, and the can has been kicked down the street. And, you know, now you're trying to figure out, you know, as an adult, where did I go wrong? Maybe that's not the right question to ask. It's not where did I go wrong? It's, oh, wait a minute, I grew up in an environment where, you know, my parents weren't emotionally available for me. There was all these problems going on. Now that I'm older, I need to take responsibility for myself, how do we do that? And what I'm sharing here is one way, not the only way. One way is to look at the 12 steps and say, What can I take from these? How can these help me moving forward? There are some people look at the 12 steps and say, Nope, not for me. Totally understand that. Other people say, I'm not sure. Again, totally understandable. Other say, I get it, I'm fine with these.

So the toolkit, the framework that we're building here, with the steps, is, at the end of the day, we're learning the skills of how we can move forward in life and process emotions in a healthy way. and problem solve. So when you do something wrong, instead of like flying off the handle, or withdrawing or not talking to somebody, you can then have that framework to say, oh, you know what? Step eight says, I need to make a list of people I've harmed. Yeah, I really dropped the ball on this one, I hurt my co worker, you know, it worked. Because I cut them off in a meeting that was really not nice to me, how can I make an event, and then you could say, oh, you know, maybe I see if they want to go to lunch and apologize and say, You know what, next time, when we're in a meeting, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, be quiet, I'm going to listen more to what you have to say like, again, just using an example. It's just this framework that has been created through the 12 steps.

When you, you know, I guess if we were to look at it as a as a, as a guideline, if you take a problem that you have, and you kind of run it through the 12 steps, you can then kind of use that as a as as a means of helping you figure out how to solve problems. Instead of, I don't know where to go, I don't know what to do. This is a tool in a toolkit. So you might have going to ACOA meetings is one tool, and you discuss the 12 steps and learn about those. You might be going to therapy, that could be another tool. You could be doing journal daily journal writing, could be another one. You could be reading self help books, doing yoga, meditation, visualization techniques, etc?

What are the tools that are going to be in your toolkit? What frameworks do you have, that are going to help you in your time of need, so that when you come up with problems in the course of your life on a regular basis, as we all do, you have some things to fall back on, you have a safety network, instead of when you were a kid, wow, nobody was here. For me. I was emotionally abandoned, or physically abandoned. And that anger of that sometimes kind of bubbles up in the present. In weird times, you know, you could be at work, and maybe somebody's treating you like, you know, badly, your boss isn't listening to you and just says I don't care, just get the work done. And you might just have these bubbled emotions that come up, and you just want to lash out. And then, you know, if you're working the 12 steps, you might be able to more easily see the connection of like, Huh, that's how I was treated in the past as a kid, I really hate that. Now, when I'm adult, what can I do to solve the problem? Can I have a more want a comfortable one on one discussion with my boss when when heads are cooler, motions are down. But how do I get to that point? What are the tools that I need to be able to implement to have a conversation with myself first, so I can process those emotions in a healthy means and then say, you know, what? Can we just talk about that for a little bit? I, I just really felt that you treated me just, you know, a disrespect and I'm kind of hoping that you see the value I bring in as an employee here. We've worked together for years. I just want to be honest with you can we blah, blah, blah, blah, you can have that conversation. That may be a good conversation that you can have may not be a good conversation depending on your work environment. Some people are in, you know, jobs where you tried to bring something up with the supervisor and they just shut you down. You know, I've been in situations like that and you can try to put the all of branch out to have that conversation, it just may not happen. It all depends. But I'm using it as an example, to show you that the framework of the 12 steps, other tools can help you have a healthier, happier life. Instead of being frustrated and go, Wow, I keep having the same argument with this problem with this person, same problem comes up again and again and again. How are you going to solve that problem? What are you going to do? What can you do different? What can you do? Some of it might be, you have a conversation with somebody, if they're not willing to change, then you need to change, meaning, you might have to disengage with that person and say, You know what, it's not worth my time anymore, I'm not going to fight with you about X, Y, or Z, you're just looking to get my goat up, you're just looking to get a rise out of me, whatever you want to call it. And that person might be frustrated, when they realize that they can't manipulate you emotionally anymore. So it is important that if you're going to take the time to learn the 12 steps, that you realize, as I've said in the past, you can't just knock these out in a day. This, to me is a is a lifelong process. It's a framework that we learn over time. And as we mature, as we have more experiences, we realize things that we did not know the first time we read the steps. I I've read the steps for the first time in what mid 90s. And here it is now 2023. Each time I read the steps, I learned something new, you know, I'm like, Oh, wow, I hadn't thought of it from this perspective before. But that really makes sense, etc.

So when you're making, you know, direct amends to people keep in mind Platinum Rule. How do they want to be treated? Not how you want to treat them? It's really important. And then how are you going to treat yourself? Are you on the list yourself about making amends? I think that's two critical questions that are really important to ask, as you're going through your list. So you can figure out the actual, you know, put into practice this step.

And it's more than just saying I'm sorry, or writing a short note, or dropping a card in the mail. It's more about having a conversation. It's about changing relationship with someone if that person is willing to have a relationship with you. And when I say relationship, I mean, you know, could be friends, it doesn't I'm not saying necessarily romantically involved, it's coworker relationship, friend relationship or sibling relationship. Are you willing to change your behavior? Because you have, you know, hurt someone in the past said bad things to them? Or, you know, hurt their feelings? How can you do it differently moving forward. So step a and Step nine, are complicated.

And they can take lots of time. My recommendation is start with a small list. Try it out on a couple of people, start with yourself, maybe see how it feels, then maybe reach out to another person to make an amends, you know, and then move on from that. But then you might put it on pause for a little bit and say, You know what, I'm going to go back to step one, and then work my way back up, you know, to Step nine, we're going to spend the next couple of weeks, you know, writing in my daily journal about these steps, what do we think about them? What have I learned that I learned about the people I first reached out to on Step nine, when you first did it for the first time? Did it work? Well? Did it not work? Well? Do you need to change anything? Did it just just really not work? And it was in a really bad way? What are you going to do about that? How are you going to pivot and adapt? That's where I think real growth comes from. So again, I hope that you found this episode helpful. And if you'd like to learn more, please visit let go and be free.com. And if you want to support the podcast, please make sure that you give me like a positive rating on either Spotify, or Apple podcast or Amazon, wherever you listen to the podcast. I appreciate you taking the time to put in a positive review, you know, like it just because it does help search engines like signal to people coming and looking for similar podcasts to find these episodes. And I do think that there's a lot here to be able to help people. So again, thank you so much. I always appreciate the time that you take and listening to the podcast. I hope you have a great rest of your day or night. And as always, be well.

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