Step 9 at a Men's OA Tool Time Retreat in Oceanside, CA

Hi, my name is Frank. I'm a recovered compulsive reader.

So the first thing is that step 9 says may direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

And I'm going to start by reading the question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. So this is the case where you've got a resentment against this guy and you hate him, but you did something that that you need to make an amends for as part of that relationship. It may be that has he has done more harm to us than we have done to him. And though we may may have acquired a better attitude towards him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults.

I mean, after all, he did a whole lot worse than we did.

Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. So again, you know, going to the one that you don't want to do the most might be the best thing to do first. We go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill wills and expressing our regret.

And under no conditions do we criticize such a person or argue. So, you know, it's, we don't talk about anything about what his part of the, of the, of the relationship was, what he did wrong. We never talked about any of that at all. It's all about what we did and what we're apologizing for in the, in this, in this step. And you know we are. We simply simply tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past.

We are there to sweep off our side of the steep St.

realizing that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. If our manner is calm. Frank, I was like, when they're Frank here and open, we will be gratified with the result. So you know, we don't talk about our his faults at all. We just talk about ours

and then they go on and they say in nine cases out of 10, the unexpected happens.

Sometimes the man we are calling upon admits his own fault. So feuds of years standing melt away in an hour. Rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress.

Now, that's nine times out of 10. That means one time out of 10 he's going to say, yeah, you're an asshole and I never want to see you again, get the hell out of here. But it doesn't matter as long as you've cleaned up your side of the street. That's all that's important here.

And then it goes on and talks about how most Alcoholics owe money. And Doctor Bob had had an had an issue where he owed money to people and he didn't tell them that they that he was an alcoholic. And so he was afraid to go and tell him that they were. He was an alcoholic.

Anyway. Let me read the passage here.

Most Alcoholics owe money. We do not dodge our creditors telling them what we are trying to do. We make no bones about our drinking. They usually know it anyway, whether we think so or not.

Nor are we afraid of disclosing our alcoholism on the theory that it may cause financial harm. Approached in this way, the most ruthless creditor will sometimes surprise us. Arranging the best deal we can. Arranging the best deal we can. Let these people know we are sorry our drinking has made us slow to pay. We must lose our fear of creditors. No matter what, no matter how far we we have to go for we are liable to drink again,

drink if we are afraid to face them. So Doctor Bob, when he came back from the trip to Atlanta where he had the, the, his, his relapse,

he went around and told everybody about his alcoholism. And he also made arrangements to pay anybody back that he owed money to. And he owed money to a lot of a lot of people because his business wasn't going very well because of all his alcoholism.

So

in other cases, criminal offenses, I won't read the whole paragraph there, but if you, if you're got, if you've done something that you could be put into jail for, what should you do about that? And you know, you, you have to take it and you have to, you have to be as truthful as you can and be willing to accept the consequences and, and see and, and see what happens. Now there's also the question of if I get put in jail, then how's my wife and family going to survive? And that's all covered in this in this section here too, they talk about that and they give it, they give a great example

of a man who had ruined another man's reputation and and, you know, lost, cost him a lot of money. And the way that the guy made amends to it was to in church, stand up and make amends to the guy in front of the whole congregation so that everybody could see what he was doing. And it worked out fine. You know, the the guy didn't make him go to jail, didn't make him pay it back, and everything worked out fine.

So reminding ourselves that we decided to go to any lengths to fit, to find a spiritual experience,

we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to. We must not shrink at anything. So even if there's a chance that you may go to jail, you have to work this step. You have to make the amends or you may end up drinking again.

Unless usually, however, other people are involved. Therefore, we are not to be hasty of not to be a hasty and foolish martyr

who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit. So we do need to take that into account.

And then the next, the next section I want to read to you is over on page 81.

They're talking about a case where a man's been having affairs and things like that. And whatever the situation, we have to do something about it. If we are sure our wife does not know, should we tell her? Not always. And that's a case where if she has no idea that you've had that affair, if you go and tell her that you had the affair, she's going to feel hurt. It's going to hurt her and she has no idea right now that you had the affair. So in that case, it would be harming someone else to go and tell her about the affair. Now, if she

thinks that you've had affairs, if she has a suspicion that you've had a fair and that that's hurting her, then right there if she's, if she, if she already has that suspicion that you've been having an affair,

in that case, you do need to go and talk to her. And I'll continue that because that's what they that's what they say here. So not always, not always. We think if she knows in general, in a general way that we have been wild. Should we tell her in detail?

Undoubtedly we should admit our fault. So we have to we If she thinks that we've been wild and have had affairs, we have to tell her the truth, that yes, we've had affairs. She may insist on knowing all about the particulars.

She will want to know who the woman is and where she is. We feel we ought to say to her that we have no right to involve another person. We are sorry for what we have done and God willing, it should not be repeated. More than that, we cannot do, we have no right to go further. So again, if we, if we, if we actually told her who the woman was, then that's going to cause a problem between your wife and that woman. And you know, she may do some retaliation and hurt that woman. So you can't disclose the the name of the the person

affair with to her if she doesn't know who it is. So it's all about cleaning up our side of the street without hurting other people. That's the advice that should always be taken here.

Perhaps there are some cases where the utmost frankness is required. No outsider. This is again still talking about the affair. No outsider can appraise an intimate situation. It may be that both will decide that the way of good sense and loving kindness is to let bygones be got. Bygones each might pray about it, about having the other ones happiness up uppermost in mind. Keep it always insight that we are dealing with the most terrible human emotion, jealousy.

Good, good generalship may decide that the problem be attacked, attacked on the flank, then risk a face to face combat.

So again, you know, it's the sex is a really, really tricky issue and you need to really

talk to your sponsor a lot about the making amends in this case here to make sure you're not hurting somebody that you shouldn't.

And then then here's near getting near the end of step nine, it says there may be some wrongs we can never fully right.

We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would write them if we could. If there are people that are out of our lives, we don't know where they are. You know, we can't go to them and make the amends. But we have to be honest and say to ourselves that I will make it if it if I can. So if that person comes back, if I find out where they are, I'll be willing to go and make the amends.

Some people cannot be seen. We send them an honest letter and there be may be a valid reason for postpone it and postponement in some cases,

but we don't delay if it can be avoided. We should be sensible, tactful, considerate, and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people, we stand on our feet. We don't crawl before anyone. OK, so that's leading us right into the 9th step promises. And you know these promises here, if we're painstaking about this phase of the development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. So by the time you get halfway through the the 9th step, that's when these problems are going to come

true. We're going to Newton know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone. We will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

So that's that's the end of step nine. And then the very next paragraph.