MY ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON STEP
EIGHT
Step Eight
"Made a list
of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them
all."
1. Is this Step concerned with personal relations with others and
us?
This
step is about asking forgiveness for myself along with my forgiving everyone
for harms done to me HARM is: injury, hurt, damage, misfortune, grief, pain,
sorrow, evil, wrong or wickedness.
And I need to make
amends for most of these things I did to others again asking forgiveness
2. Is reluctance to forgive an Obstacle?
Personally
I think the fear of even thinking of forgiven others was my biggest obstacle in
the
Beginning of recovery
was real hard to not let go of the anger I had for thing I perceived others did
to poor me but some of the thing that did happen were hurtful to me and
resentments had no place in my recovery
3. Is non-admission of wrongs to others an Obstacle?
Another
touchy subject there were a lot of things I thought could be skipped over
because I did things to some but at the same time they wronged me my thinking
was one hand washes the other in theses cases but the truth of the matter I did
not want to go over this obstacle EVER!!!
4. Is purposeful forgetting an Obstacle?
Had
to look at myself real close in this one because of my blackout drinking most
of the time I had third hand information on what I did and like a good drunk I
sure did not believe I did those entire thing some I did remember but just let
it slide not at first willing to make amends because I feared it would Open old
wounds
5. Is necessity of exhaustive survey of past an Obstacle?
This
was the really a Hugh obstacle who wants to admit they are wrong in the first
place and to look at all my past faults WOW I never thought I had any till my
wonderful sponsor started to point them out in Step four he told me to always
balance the negative things with the positive things after all we were not always
doing wrong
6. Is deepening insight results from thoroughness an Obstacle?
A
deepening awareness of my self was a very positive thing it helped me to seek
Gods will for me it was one of the great things about doing a fourth step with
my sponsor whom I hand absolute trust in an believe me he was not going to
accept anything less than complete thoroughness in this step
7. What kinds of harm done to others have we been avoiding?
Most
of the harms I did when I lied or stole from places I just did not want to
admit my faults in these areas with those who I had harmed like the stores I
stole from or the many people I lied to because I needed to look important and
wanted to fit in with the rest of my friends
8. Do we resort to extreme judgments of others or ourselves?
I
always was in judgment of others by looking at all there faults I could very
nicely hide my own and try to make them look bad in the eyes of others gossip
was a big thing in the clubs and I could keep up with the best of them when
doing the fourth step I started to judge myself and even wondered it anyone
would ever talk to me again after all I put them thru guilt and fear set in
again sponsor to the rescue he said what was positive in what you have learned
9. Do we take the objective view on wrongs we did or were done to
us?
Well
with the sponsor I had you damn well had better be objective about everything
and everyone on that 100 page list lol again I stress the positive must balance
out the negative in our amends to everyone it was a relief to know most of them
did forgive me the other well I tried to just clean up the wreckage on my side
of the street I had to forgive myself in these cases so I would not hold
resentment
10. In what way is Step Eight the beginning of the end of
isolation for us?
Making
that list in Step eight and being willing to go to any length to stay sober
gave my the freedom to See how I was just a part of the great whole and it
became evident I was now closer to the God of my understanding and knew I did
the best I could to be ready to move on to step nine making those Amends
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