Amending Fear and Shame

Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

For so long, I’ve felt like I lived on an island inside a stone fortress. I lived this way because I believed that people wouldn’t like me and would eventually try to harm me. I hid my feelings, actions, and motives because I was ashamed of all of them. I was ashamed of me. In my disease, I had no integrity, no honesty, and no faith, so I could not possibly expect people to see those things in me. My greatest fear was that people would discover how truly debased I was.

I’m beginning to understand that when I make amends for the actions and behavior I’m ashamed of in my life, I’m freeing myself from a prison of self-abuse and self-hatred by taking action. The more I’m aware of how I’ve been inconsiderate and unkind, the less I feel the hurts from other people that I’ve been nursing. I don’t know why I’ve been afraid to write this amends list, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. Getting out of the food has given me a greater sense of compassion for other people. It has given me a smaller sense of myself and how I fit into the grand scheme.

More and more, I’m being asked for naked honesty from my Higher Power. I am learning to live on integrity, faith, and honesty rather than personality. My amends is part of this process. If I can face writing the list and making the amends one at a time, then I can move through some of my fear of living a life not based in defense and self-preservation. I can instead begin to act according to truth and compassion, even when it does not serve my own selfish interests.

— Edited and reprinted from The Heartbeat of Recovery newsletter, Region One, Winter 2006