Amends can be very powerful in the healing department. Direct or indirect. God will find a way to help with these.

I needed to make amends to my dear grandmother but she had passed away one year prior. I didn't know what to do. I meditated on it asking for an answer then I let it go.

One day I was sitting at a table in a local restaraunt thumbing through some business type cards in a small wooden box on the table.

There it wa...a card for Volunteers for SL Aging services. I was so elated, I called them immediately and offered them my services. They hooked me up with an elderly lady in my neighborhood.

She was a shut in with half a dozen cats and small piles of stuff that she walked around dragging her oxygen tube with her. None of her family came to visit her. I visited with her for an hour or so two to four times a week taking care of whatever she needed most.

She wasn't my grandmother but my heart grew and healed that year. There is a way if one just has willingness and faith.

Knowing you have amends to make is Most of the battle, I think I get into trouble when I don't want to admit that I have caused harm to others, I believe the best amends that I can make to people that I am not able to make direct amends to, is to just stay sober, and not behave in the way which made me have to make amends in the first place, today I am a good person, respectful, and wouldn't want to cause anyone harm. That is amends itself! God bless you

One other thing I would like to comment on the fact that you realized this things thru soul serching, reviewing and house cleaning, this is the part of the steps that helps us to become FREE, and it all happens thru Quiet, and the things we hear while in silence! Congrats to you for finding the quiet!

I was reading about Near Death Experience (NDE) survivors and their stories. It is very common for someone to who has "died" and come back to say that their life literally flashed before them and in this review all the pain they caused others was felt by themselves tenfold. They say it was awful, but sobering experience. Really makes you see how you can effect others.

In saying this, I wonder if the fact that I am sorry for being so incredibly horrible when I was a child to other children (I was a mean bitch) is enough.

On a side note, I have been waiting for a talk show to call me and invite me in to one of those "remember me then-look at me now things" Where they invite the bully from gradeschool (me) to see the nerd they made fun of turn into a hottie. Like one of those girls I made fun of with buck teeth is now a model or stripper or something. THis has not happened but I am still waiting.

I need to make amends to my father and I don't think I will ever lie in rest until I do. I spoke to him when I was about 38 and plowed into him. I said some of the nastiest things a person could ever say to another person. It was the first time in about 23 years since I spoke to him.
He called me.
But I don't want to.
I need to but I don't want to.
Why should I apologize to a man who raped me when I was 10 yrs.
Why should I after never speaking to him and he calls me and tells me that " I only screwed you once". ( lie)
I just don't know about this one but I do know that the things I said to him were wrong. The cruelest things I have ever said to a soul.
I can't get past it. Oh I am so over him but the bible says to honor your mother and your father.
It doesn't say...well...unless they did this or that.
I just don't know.
Bugs the hell out of me.
What to do?

Kate, that is rough.

As a child, we are so self centered we think we cause everything that our parents do at some level. Any rational person would tell you he deserved to be ripped apart and then some. But it didn't feel relieving/healing to you so this is a problem.

If you called him names on the phone, insulted him out of context, etc. You can may ammends for your own good-nothing to do with him. I think rather than call him you may want to write him a letter, get this off your mind as much as possible. Unfortunately, those of us who have suffered horrible abuses as children will always have scars, just need to tend to them as lovingly and patiently as possible.

Have you anyone around that could help you with this, a counselor or trusted emotionally secure friend? my heart goes out to you kate.

Thanks, KK, but he ain't worth the cost of the stamp, envelope and certainly not worth the effort.
I suppose God knows how I feel bad about it so maybe that will be good enough.
If you heard what he said he needs to make more amends than I do so I guess I will just let it lie.

Whoohoo, From pg 66 and 67 of the Big Book
"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.
We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look for it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol. This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.
Though we did not like thier symptoms and the waythese disturbed us, they,like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to helpus show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

Obviously what your father did was extremely wrong and very damaging. The question is are you going to continue to let that ruin the rest of your life. Until you forgive he still has control. Forgive and take control of your own life in the process.
If we are to be forgiven we must also forgive.

I suppose so, Reed.
I really don't even think about the man very much. This board brings up serious issues....
I know I need to forgive, Reed. I know I do.
But he calls me, after about 23 or 27 years because he is dying and asks for my forgiveness. I told him that he didn't need mine. He needed God's.
Then he had the balls to say, " Well, I only screwed you once".
I hit the roof. I mean I hit the roof. And I know I have to forgive him but gawd no child and I don't care how old..needs to hear that from a father and to top it off it's a lie.
He tried to kill me once. He doesn't remember. Says I'm a liar.
The dude doesn't drink or drug.
This is pure insanity.
But I know I need to forgive him for my sake.
I just don't know how and I'm not sure if he even deserves it. I guess I do. I guess that's the point.
Forgive him for myself.
Now enters my mother who allowed it. Not only to me but to my sisters.
I don't know who's worse.
And why do I always have to be the nice one?
Why can't I just hate once in a while?

Amends are freeing and the amends that I have made have made living with me easier.

Meditation and prayer worked best for me with the ones that I felt had hurt me. Some people in my life have been too toxic for me to directly deal with - for those, instead of creating contact or speaking to directly, I do what works to reduce my conflicting feelings.

Forgiving myself has been harder. What I work on for myself is to create a spirit of kindness, internally and externally.

I am a work in progress - no perfection here!

bumpity bump.
No one is exempt from needing to make amends...

Hey reed, thank you for this post, because it is ALWAYS relevant. The amends is often where people fall down. I have learned that I cannot just let my sponsees walk away from me with their list and we just continue through the rest of the steps and 'offloading' them. Now my sponsees and I meet up for regular reviews. It's not an experience to miss because sometimes, I see an incredible change happen right before my eyes.

I ask all my sponsees to divide their amends into 4 columns:

1 Amends to be made now
2 Amends that have to be made later
3 Amends to be made at some point
4 Amends I will never make.

My experience is that as the amends in column one are completed, all the columns shift over one, so the laters become now. After some regular reviews with one of my sponsees, she came in and told me that she had moved all of those she had in her 'NEVER' comumn she had moved into sometime because she wasn't gonna 'piss about with my recovery and my life, no resentment is worth that!'

My GOD!!! I was blown away as I saw this sullen, shy sulky person become a woman full of sunshine. She's still doing those amends but now nothing is out of bounds to her! FAB!

Had a cat last night that blew off his amends to his father. His father died.
My father died while I was in prison. Took another 15 years to wake up.
Procrastination and recovery don't mix.

I have so many amends to make I don't know where to begin.
I guess maybe I wanna make revenge first and then make amends.
I swear there are a couple people in my life I would like to do some serious harm and well...then apologize?
Suppose that doesn't count, does it.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

WooHoo.... you bring joy..... No that dosn't count, but I'm sure it's okay to laugh on our way. Thanks ReedM for reminding me to look deeper in my housekeeping.
CM xx