An Amends That Went Very, Very Sideways - Al-Anon Family Group

Advocate_For_Steve · Member

An Amends That Went Very, Very Sideways

Temple · ~*Service Worker*~

I realized as I was logging on that my motive to post here isn't to give you ESH, but to whine.

So, for what it's worth--DDH was in AA once for about 6 months (my therapist coerced him into going--it was not voluntary.) I don't know how his working his program went. I do know he did some 12th stepping with my bicycle, previously shared with much mirth) and it's been about 30 years and there have been no amends made nor has there ever been a time he was willing to hear about any of my thoughts or feelings or past hurts. Because if it was more than 2 seconds ago, it was all in the past, right?

You sound as if you are working a good program. Good luck and other people will surely have more relevant responses for you.

Temple

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

I agree the timing was not good, procedure was not followed. You had no chance to talk to your sponsor first.

My thought is too, it is her amends not ours. i am not sure it's about us saying what about this or that.

I have not been thru this. sigh but I know me and i turn into a pumpkin after four pm! I am a morning person. I read your post again, and feel it wasn't not handled well.

I am sure you guys will work it out. For an A to admit to making mistakes and hurting others is a huge thing for them. They don't take it the way a non A would. I can take anything if i blow it. but for an A its a horrible thing to face.

Just part of the process, don't make it more than it is hugs to you both!

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

It seems to me that you have some unresolved resentments. It takes time to work through them. Im not sure the time to bring them up would be if she earnestly tried to make amends. I think the amends part can be difficult so to then bring out your list of grievances, to me seems unnecessary. In making amends to people with no step experience I can see that it could be more damaging and the risk is that the person may bring out further grievances. It could happen but I personally would be pretty peed off if the response was well you also did this and this. hopefully shes got enough recovery to accept that you didnt accept her amends. Thats the risk we all take and really its the other persons problem.

it could be that youve got your own work to do on your own recovery, I dont get why you would be meeting up in a foursome with your sponsors. Can the program work like that? I dont see how, I mean part of the problems I had were about how enmeshed my life was with the alcoholics life, so much so that I didnt have much of a life of my own. My recovery is mine and kind of private the alcoholics recovery is his. I know how easy it is to look at the recovery of another person and judge it but who are we to judge? How do we know weve git it sussed and then we can look down from on high to judge someone elses attempts?

-- Edited by el-cee on Tuesday 14th of October 2014 04:45:48 PM

-- Edited by el-cee on Tuesday 14th of October 2014 05:36:41 PM

KennyFenderjazz · ~*Service Worker*~

I didn't think there would be a time where she would ask you anything. My understanding of amends (even though I haven't been through a formal one yet) is that they are more for the person who committed the wrongdoing, to get it off their chest and liberated out of their guiltheap. Why they would open themselves up for this I don't know, I don't know anybody who would be prepared for such a thing.

My recovering AW will be doing her amends soon. I believe she has already done some with some friends. And I'm not sure how to react. I would love to hear from more folks on this subject myself.

Kenny

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

Only one A has ever made a formal amends with me. Although it was not in person, it was in letter form. In it she shared that she was working a program, that she'd been drinking to excess when we worked together, that she knew she had mistreated me and she listed the ways she had done that. She went on to say the things she was grateful for in knowing me and that I had done nothing that deserved or contributed to her meanness towards me. I got the impression from the letter that it was just my job to listen and to respond if I chose to do so. I wasn't asked to share any other ways I might have been harmed. I was simply surprised to receive the letter as she had been a very nasty person to work with and glad to know the reason for her nastiness. I had no idea she drank. I just knew she was mean-mouthed and a puzzle to me. The letter shed light on everything for me and that was enough. I don't remember feeling the need to respond.

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

Kenny, I got an amends from my ex but it wasnt due to the steps, it was due to a hangover period just before he went to aa faithfully. For the first time I heard him say that he got why I left, he could see the craziness, how his behaviour and dri king affected us. He was sorry. Ive never heard that before or since and it did have an impact. I heard it, I felt it and even though it was only a moment of clarity for him or whatever it was. It meant something to me so I took it for myself, I needed it. I didnt respond either, in fact I was the opposite, I was temoted to rush in and minimise what he was saying, like, oh its okay, type thing. Amends are difficult for anyone of us and the motives must be right but the receiver of the amends should at least mind their manners and show courtesy and respect. The rest, unforgiveness, their own bitterness and resentments, well thats on them and for them only to deal with.

Temple · ~*Service Worker*~

This is an enlightening topic. Thank you, Advocate.

El-Cee,
I do remember that DDH used to say I had saved his life. (We all know I didn't.) And that was an acknowledgment by him that he had been on a nowhere path. So that was kind of a sideways making amends, or at least an admission that something had been amiss and that was nice to remember.

G2B:
What you said triggered a memory. A difficult neighbor came over one day and was just giving me Hell. Maybe about leaving him a note that he really did need to secure his pool after the second time I had helped a rather large dog out of the deep end--I can't remember exactly. And I looked at him and spontaneously said, "Phil, have you been drinking?" And I thought he was going to have a stroke, but shortly after that, he started going to AA and got his life straightened out and met his now wife there.
Anyway, what you said, I wonder if a lot of the inexplicably nasty people in our lives were secret drinkers. That would explain a lot. Because sometimes somebody can just come at us off the wall and we are left shaking our heads and thinking what set him off? Or in the case of the chronically maladjusted, who would choose to be so downright nasty?

Spur · Senior Member

Thanks for this topic. I've only had one A do this and it totally caught me off guard and I had no idea why she would feel compelled to apologize to me for things she did or said while under the influence. She had been going to AA and had stopped drinking. I had never known her to be out of line or cause anyone harm in any way so I didn't get it when she offered me her apology for any harm she might have caused me. Now I get it. She was making amends and now I know what that means.

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

I would not expect someone with just 6 months sober to be able to make really thorough amends. So to me...this sounded like you accepted her amends and then took her inventory. Either she is going to grow into what you want or need in a relationship or not....what's the point of trying to rush her recovery or correct it to your liking?

In my first year sober, I would have wanted to slap the crap out of anyone that called me a dry drunk because it took everything I had just to not be a wet drunk. Yeah, I made some progress with character defects, but that first year was mostly about going to meetings and not drinking so that I could just START acting like a grown up.

Also, you are the one that chose to be in a relationship with a drunk for the first year and you are also the one who chooses to be with a person newly in recovery that is still pretty broken. Diagnosing her as a fear ridden dry drunk at her 6 month sobriety point doesn't seem too supportive of her recovery to me. If you want higher functioning women, maybe don't seek out relationships with active alcoholics or those in early recovery who really are not advised to be in new relationships at all in the first place.

Another sticky spot is that you have your own program as you stated you have worked the 12 steps in alanon. That doesn't mean a whole lot to her and her program. Having worked them does not mean you are done with them. Also, you don't know what her process will be like or should be like because her program is not yours. Either you can live with it, accept it, and love her....or not. You applied terms like "JADE" and what not to her and that is not even what AA is about, that is an Alanon term/slogan. You are not helping her by comparing her program to yours or by expecting her to be doing the exact same inventory that you would do.

Don't mean to ride you or slam you but part of alanon is not having unrealistic expectations of sick alcoholics. You got with her as an active drunk and stayed with her as a person in early sobriety. Did you think she would have all her crap sorted out in just 6 months?

Temple · ~*Service Worker*~

The way I read this, Fiancee was not drinking the first 6 months, drank actively the second and has been in recovery for 6, so I didn't read that she was an active A when Advocate met her.

Also, I haven't been there and don't know the step, but I did read that Fiancee' asked Advocate for feedback, and that is how she expected the amends process to go.

Everybody who has lived with an active A is pretty crunched up.

Hope we can all take a breath and regroup.

Blessings to all of us,
Temple

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

Yeah. I think I read the timeline wrong. Sorry bout that Steve. I still stand by 90 percent of my response though. You are going to the hardware store looking for bread and then trying to engage the bread in a discussion about how you are pissed at the bread for being hardware.

This is what you wrote "I had a list of many situations, mistreatments, manipulations, and overall ways I've felt wronged in the course of her drinking and post-drinking days" In other words...A giant fat resentment that was YOURS to work through. She came at you with amends and you utilized the opportunity to focus on your resentment rather than her amends. And you are about to marry this person with that many grudges against her and the way she treats you or treated you and that you think is a dry drunk that runs on fear?

I'm hearing you stating all these red flags. In fact, you are even stating the red flags to HER. Yet it's YOU that's going to marry this woman. This is your program to work.

aquamom23 · Senior Member

This is interesting.thanks for sharing the realistic aspect of two different yet entwined recovery processes. With age I find you can have one situation and many truths, truths which do not lessen each other. Neither of you are responsible for the others recovery,equally neither has the right to sabotage the others. I think when you told your partner it wasn't a good time for you, that right there should have been enough. For you to then hear something you weren't in a space to be appropriate towards knowingly, is to me,you letting your boundaries be violated and then responding to it the same way you would under any other circumstance. This doesn't bode well for your own recovery,which I know is bloody difficult. No is a complete sentence,you have the right to follow through on it. My two and a half cents.

bud · ~*Service Worker*~

I remember wanting to hear certain words/ amends from our As. Resentment built when I didn't hear what I wanted to hear. I have come to learn that it is often about the person making amends and not any attachments assigned by the recipient. The recipient can choose to acknowledge or accept the amend or not, whether it is complete or not.

I have also come to accept what positive thing was offered, even if it didn't restore me or the situation. It's not that I was grateful for crumbs, I have accepted that the A was not well and this was the best that he could do at the time... no matter how much or little recovery that person has chronologically, as recovery is not usually linear.

What helped me with this process was working the steps with a sponsor- especially the fourth step.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.