"The question arises of just what constitutes an amend. Many of us find that the old rationalization, 'If I stay sober, that's amends enough to those I have hurt,' just doesn't work. We have to be willing to go further."
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
I was working with my sponsor on this one when I said something about making a 'living amends' to my wife ... then he got me to open up about my married time with her and asked if I had been greedy and thoughtless when it came to getting what I wanted out of the relationship ... including making decisions that gave her no respect or satisfaction, including our sex life ...
Oh boy, I didn't really want to think about it ... somehow, I brought up the fact that I was cleaning house one time, still deep in my addiction, and found about 20 purses in a closet the my wife was storing there ... well, about 10 looked good enough to keep and 10 looked like they needed to be thrown away ... of course I went through each and every purse before throwing the old ones away ... found a few coins here and there and a few bucks too ... THEN IT HAPPENED, I found $1200 dollars in one ... jackpot ... I found what I needed to keep me in booze for a while ...
Six months later, my wife asked what happen to all those old purses ... I said I threw them away ... she said uh,oh ... she had some money in one ... I said really? ... then I said I guess it's gone now ...
20 years later ... I'm on step 9 and my sponsor says ... you know you have to give it back to her ... I said, I stole it from her and she has no idea of it ... I said I don't want to 'hurt her' to know i did that and lied about it ??? ... ... ... he laughed, he said if you don't repay this, it'll hurt you a whole lot more than it will her, plus, this will go a long way to rebuilding her trust in you since getting sober ... so for 4 months, I saved all I could from my new job til the day I made this amends ... man was she shocked, and 'tickled to death' to get the money ... (I gave her $1300 back, you know, a little interest added) ...
So, my wife and are still together ... trust is great between us today ... and my sponsor was right, a living amends would not have been enough, if only for the quality of my sobriety ...
Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
