Even if my drinking & using had never caused me to tell lies, never caused me to shortchange my employers by being unproductive due to hangovers or excessive absenteeism, never caused me to put the safety of others at risk by driving under the influence, never caused me to disappoint and inconvenience people by flaking out on my responsibilities because I was too drunk or sick to show up for my commitments - even if the only thing I ever did was drink and use without doing any of those things, I would still have caused terrible harm to everyone in my life who loved me and cared about me because I put them through the pain of having to watch me slowly killing myself with booze and drugs while they were powerless to do anything to make me stop.

It wasn't until I had been sober a few years, and had already done a lot of work to heal my relationships with my family, and had thought that I had already worked the ninth step, when this fact really hit home. My dad was dying a slow and painful death due to terminal cancer. I was spending a lot of time with him, and as things got worse for him, it felt horrible to see him suffer and not be able to do anything to help him. It was at one of these moments, with me at his bedside, when I finally had the ability to see, with total self-honesty, what I had put this man through during those years when the roles were reversed and he had to watch me slowly descending into alcoholism, and him being unable to do anything to save me, and the pain and frustration he must have felt having to watch this happen to his son.

I did not let that moment pass. Right then, with the help of some kind of power that was far stronger, saner, and healthier than my own flawed and fear-based self-will, I just held his hand as he lay there in the bed, and went ahead and told him what I felt. I told him how awful it felt to see him in pain and to not be able to fix it, and I told him that I now understood what I must have put him through when he had to watch me suffering because of my drinking. And I told him how sorry I was for putting him through that, and that I never, ever wanted to hurt anyone like that ever again. And that no matter what, one day at a time, I would continue to do everything I had to do to make sure of that.

He thanked me, and then we just sat quietly for a while until he fell asleep.

When he passed away a few weeks later, yes, the grief hurt like hell. But even during the most painful hours right after he passed, I was acutely aware that we had parted on good terms, that we had said everything that needed to be said, that there was no unfinished business between us, and that despite how much grief I felt, I would not drink over this because I had no regrets. This was the ninth step amends that truly set me free.