Guilt and Grief: Making A Living Amends

Unfortunately, after you get sober, all the hurt and destruction you caused in the wake of your addiction doesn’t just go away. You have to put in the work to repair the damage and heal those relationships. To make amends, you must do more than just make apologies for your past behavior.

• After reading these 75 quotes, you should be motivated to take control of your clutter!
• Yes, we partake in the process to “clean up our side of the street,” but we do not make amends to clear our conscience or undo our feelings of guilt.
• As Kessler describes, this woman may decide that her way of making amends is to always answer the phone when someone she loves calls after a fight.
• Your ‘living amends’ is living in a way that that acknowledges the previous mistake by consistently living in a way that doesn’t repeat it or compensates for it.
• 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.

It’s really hard to apologize to those you’ve hurt — it takes courage and humility and requires a deep, intense look at yourself. It follows, then, that Step Nine is a challenging step. Thankfully, there are tips you can take to help make your living amends permanent and lasting. We believe that the only path to forgiveness is asking it of the person we love, the person we believe we hurt, and making amends for what we did wrong.

Decluttering Quotes That Will Inspire You To Reduce Your Clutter

My Mom, on the other hand, loves to complain about Ricky’s behavior. Sometimes I can listen supportively for a short period of time. When she takes a breath, I ask if she wants my opinion. Over the years, in small bits and pieces, I have been able to share small pearls of my Al-anon wisdom.

It would be easy to think there is nothing more WYG can write about guilt and grief. We’ve written about how common guilt is in grief (you wouldn’t believe how many people get the “coulda woulda shouldas”). We wrote an article about the difference between guilt and regret. We talked about the complicated processes of self-forgiveness and self-compassion. We’ve filled you in on things that can exacerbate guilt, like hindsight bias and survivors’ guilt. We’ve given you journaling exercises around coping with regret.

Fulfill your promises.

You might go to that person and take responsibility for what you have done wrong, express you deep remorse, and ask what you can do to make it up to them. You may couple that https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/why-we-have-a-fear-of-being-sober-5-fears-about-it/ making of amends with a request for forgiveness. I am not saying things like that are easy, they’re not. We can go to them directly and work through it (or at least try).

Then, the next time around, make sure to make good on your word. Living amends is a certain type of amends you make in addiction recovery. 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 living amends emotional and physical sobriety. In 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. Part of healing the past is owning the wrongs we have made towards people and places while living in our addiction.

Renewal Center for Ongoing Recovery

I am determined to let my loved ones be independent. They don’t always see my hands off approach as sincere kindness, but my motives are pure. I’m doing what I think is best for all of us.

Don’t expect immediate forgiveness, and also, don’t pressure yourself to fix every broken relationship immediately. Today, I know my words have value whether they pay attention or not. If they didn’t pay attention, I do my best to let them suffer the consequence.

What is Mindfulness and How to Be Mindful?

Apologies can only go so far in repairing past pain, but it’s a place where you need to begin to heal. Ask for forgiveness and be genuine in your intentions. One of the greatest regrets some people endure is not apologizing to a loved one for past wrongs before they die.

• No matter how much we feel the need to make things right, forcing another to meet with us or hear from us is not part of the Steps.
• Step Nine states that we make amends “except when to do so would injure them or others.” We don’t want our actions to cause further damage, harm or stress.
• Suddenly your spinning around things you feel guilty for.
• In addiction, our actions and intentions aren’t aligned.
• But when it does, we usually just stand there, our minds blank.

Their parent may feel more pain for their addicted child’s inability to get sober than the material items lost due to the thefts. After years of being bossy and overbearing, my basic apologies meant little. My living amends represents the last A in PANDA.

Reach Out Recovery

A few months back, she was traveling for an extended period of time. Well, the time came to continue my living amends to her and redo her entire master suite, including her bathroom. She came home to what she described as “a completely different house”. My living amends to my mother is to be fully present in my life so I can be fully present in hers.

• Living amends touches deep parts of our lives and souls if we allow them.
• Soon, you’ll run out of reasons to give your loved ones why you’ve failed them once again.
• These promises focus on rebuilding your relationship with a loved one and moving forward from the pain of the past.
• When held in the bonds of an addiction, it’s not uncommon for many relationships to feel strain, or to fall apart together.

Living amends bridges the gap between living in shame and regret and finding forgiveness. When I first came to recovery, I was certain steps 8 and 9 would be a breeze. After all, I hadn’t hurt anyone (Step 8), so I didn’t need to make any amends (Step 9). In fact, every day I make a living amends to my husband, son, Mom, and brother Ricky.

Please read our success stories below, or contact our team today to talk to some of our experts. It’s much easier to just apologize and move on, but committing to living your life differently looks different. It requires ongoing and conscious effort to change.