Forgiveness and amends are both gifts we give ourselves. Forgiveness of can release the anger and resentment that we feel towards another person who has hurt us and amends can help eliminate the guilt and shame we feel when we hurt others. Both of these are difficult tasks because they require us to address actions and feelings we might rather forget, but making the effort to both forgive and make amends can bring serenity into our lives.
A number of people confuse amends with apologies and while both involve reaching out to someone we have harmed through our actions or words, amends involve both words and actions. Al-Anon, along with AA and other programs, encourages people to make amends as part of their program (step 9 to be exact). In an article at the Hazeldon Betty Ford Foundation Site, John MacDougall, D.Min states, “An amend has to do with restoring justice as much as possible. The idea is to restore in a direct way that which we have broken or damaged—or to make restoration in a symbolic way if we can’t do it directly.” As an example he says that if you borrowed money from someone and never paid it back, saying I’m sorry would be an apology while paying the money back would be an amend.
The first step in offering amends is deciding who you owe amends to and this can be tricky. My rule of thumb is that if I took an action to deliberate hurt someone or I hurt someone physically through my carelessness I owe an amends. Specifically, if I call someone a “sorry excuse for a human being” or a run over someone while texting, I definitely owe them an apology. Other cases are not so clear cut because someone may inadvertently be hurt while I was making a decision that was in my best interest. If I work 80 hours a week and never see my kids, I may owe them an amends. However, if I choose to become a pagan and my fundamentalist Christian parents are upset, I don’t owe an amends because they are choosing to be upset.
Whenever possible amends should be made in person and directly to the person you have harmed. Typically an amends would start with an apology as well as an acknowledgement of how you have harmed the other person. After you’ve made the apology, you’ll need to ask the other person how you can make things right between the two of you. If you owe them money, you could pay them back with interest. If you’ve harmed their reputation, you should take whatever steps possible to make things right. Some things cannot be undone and may require creativity in making amends. For instance, if you’ve seriously injured someone by driving drunk, you cannot undo the injury. However, you could apologize and volunteer to speak to school assemblies about drunk driving or make a donation in their name. Whatever action you take needs to be concrete and a sincere effort to make things right and not just a token.
In some instances, direct amends are not possible because you’ve lost contact with the person or to come forward and make amends would harm them or someone else. As an example, if you had an affair many years ago, but have since rebuilt your relationship with your spouse, you will need to decide if your desire to make amends outweighs the hurt your spouse might feel by your telling them about the affair now. In this instance, you may decide to make a living amends and rededicate yourself to changing how you live and being honest and upstanding from this point forward.
If you’ve hurt someone and have lost touch with them or have no other way to make direct amends, you could make an indirect amends. An indirect amends is a symbolic gesture to atone for your actions. For instance, if you killed someone while driving drunk and they have no family to make amends to, you could make a charitable donation in their name to a worthwhile organization or volunteer to speak to school children.
Making amends can be a life changing experience. One of my hardest amends when I did my ninth step was to make amends to my best friend who I had dumped all the pain of my marriage on. I took advantage of his friendship and was always crying on his shoulder. My amends took the form of a letter where I outlined why I needed to make amends, an in-person apology, and a living amends where I changed my behavior to be more self-sufficient and more respectful of his boundaries. Changing my behavior was hard because there were a lot of times where I wanted to pick up the phone and vomit my problems all over him like I’d gotten into the habit of doing. However, my living amends required me to find different ways to deal with my pain.
As difficult as it was, the gifts I got from making amends to people cannot be measured. I regained my self-respect and was able to look in the mirror again.
Cairn by Cairn 