Episode 233 -- August 11, 2022

When we were using, most of our interactions with people involved trying to get them to do things that would support our addiction. We lied, manipulated, and pretended—all in an attempt to control the world around the thing that controlled us. Recovery requires us to stop resisting the changes our Higher Power is working in our lives, and instead find harmony with it. Setting things right with the people we've harmed starts with being willing and brave enough to set ourselves right.

A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living is written as a companion to the Big Book. It directly applies to those who are working the Twelve Steps. Understanding that some of us don't frame our recovery according to the Twelve Steps, we can still take lessons from this tried-and-true tradition and apply them to our own journey—especially the parts that help us heal and repair relationships that were broken because of our addictions.

For those of us who are using the Big Book, this excerpt is an invitation to the outward-facing work of Steps Eight and Nine in which we list the people we've harmed and then willingly go about the work of making amends. Our experience with the previous Steps has helped us get to know ourselves better and connect with a Higher Power. We have a taste of what freedom and healing can feel like. Now we have a chance to take responsibility and do something about the hurt and trouble we caused others.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

A Design for Living
By the time you've gotten to the Eighth Step using the Big Book as we've suggested, you'll have worked pretty hard on the first seven Steps, and great things will have begun to take place in your life. As you go further and continue to work the Twelve Steps, we think you'll come to see that the Big Book and the Steps are really a design for living. The Twelve Steps aren't a process that you do once, they're something that you bring with you, carry out, and practice day after day.

You will also see that the Twelve Steps boil down to one thing: change—changing your life, day after day. To remain free, you have to make changes constantly.

This design for living that the Big Book offers will work for anyone who wants to use it, regardless of a person's circumstances. We think this is because a Spirit, a Higher Power—some of us call it "God"—dwells within every one of us.

Now, if this Power does dwell in each of us—and if you've thoroughly worked the Steps up to this point, you'll be as sure as we are that it does—then the important question in life, the most basic question of all, is this: Do I live in harmony with this Power, or do I live in opposition and disharmony? Steps One through Seven have provided you with a way to find this harmony and live in it.

Steps One through Three put you in the right relationship with your Higher Power, a relationship where now your Higher Power, not you, is to be the director. Steps Four through Seven put you in the right relationship with yourself. In Steps Four through Seven, you could see what blocked you from your Higher Power, and you're doing something to eliminate character defects or shortcomings from your personality.

Now you're ready for Steps Eight and Nine, both of which give you an opportunity to live in harmony with your fellow human beings. They give you the chance to set things right with other people and to get rid of the fear, guilt, remorse, and shame that you might have felt in the past.

In Step Eight, you make a list of all the people you've harmed, and you become willing to make amends to them all. In Step Nine, you actually make direct amends to these people wherever possible, except when doing so would hurt them or others.

By now, you've set things right with a Power greater than yourself. If you also can set things right with your fellow human beings, you're probably going to start feeling pretty good. And you're going to discover a way to live in which you can be sober, peaceful, happy, and free.

Starting from Within
The thing about setting things right with other people is that you've got to start from inside yourself. Starting on the outside doesn't work for most addicts and alcoholics.

Some professionals who work with alcoholics and addicts—psychiatrists, psychologists, and so on—say pretty much the opposite. They say, "Let's get this addict a car and a job and a spouse, and then this person will be able to stay sober." But from our observations and experiences, this approach simply doesn't work very well for people like us.

Back when the two of us were still drinking, there were plenty of times when each of us would have a car and a job and a wife, and we'd still end up drunk. Then each of us would have a car and a wife, but no job. So we'd run around and cheat on our wives, and we'd each end up with a car, no job, and no wife. Then we'd get drunk, wreck our cars, and we'd each end up with no car, no job, and no wife. We'd each stay sober for a while here and there, and get a new job or a new car, but soon we'd start drinking again and lose whatever it was we had managed to acquire while we were sober. We could never get the outside stuff straight until we first changed what was going on inside of us.

This is what the Twelve Steps are all about—changing what's going on inside of you—and with Steps Eight and Nine you can start to get rid of the fear, guilt, remorse, and shame that are associated with the people you listed in your personal inventories—the people you hurt, threatened, or caused trouble for. Working Steps Eight and Nine gives you a chance to do something about all that hurt and trouble you caused. But you can't work Steps Eight and Nine until you've worked Steps One through Seven.

Willingness and Courage
The Big Book describes the process of working these two Steps on pages 76-84, beginning with the third paragraph on page 76. The first part of this paragraph deals with Step Eight: You make a list of all the people you've harmed, and become willing to make amends to each of them.

This is a very simple Step. In fact, you'll have done the first half of it already. Your personal inventories will contain a list of just about all of the people you've harmed. Then it's just a matter of being willing to make amends to all of them. If by now you've thought of some more people you've harmed, just add them to the list and analyze them as you did in your Step Four inventories.

Willingness is the key to Step Eight. If you're not completely willing to make amends, or if you think you're unable to or lack the courage, then the Big Book, on lines 24-25 of page 76, shows you exactly what to do: You pray to your Higher Power, asking for willingness and courage, and you continue to pray until the willingness and the courage come.

That is all there is to Step Eight—and willingness and courage are all you need to put the Step into practice in your life.

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