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ourselves could restore us to sanity. If that degree of humili-
ty could enable us to find the grace by which such a deadly
obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the
same result respecting any other problem we could possibly
have.
Step Eight
Made a list of all persons we had harmed,
and became willing to make amends to them
all.
STEPS Eight and Nine are concerned with personal rela-
tions. First, we take a look backward and try to discover
where we have been at fault; next we make a vigorous at-
tempt to repair the damage we have done; and third, having
thus cleaned away the debris of the past, we consider how,
with our newfound knowledge of ourselves, we may devel-
op the best possible relations with every human being we
know.
This is a very large order. It is a task which we may per-
form with increasing skill, but never really finish. Learning
how to live in the greatest peace, partnership, and brother-
hood with all men and women, of whatever description, is a
moving and fascinating adventure. Every A.A. has found
that he can make little headway in this new adventure of
living until he first backtracks and really makes an accurate
and unsparing survey of the human wreckage he has left in
his wake. To a degree, he has already done this when taking
moral inventory, but now the time has come when he ought
to redouble his efforts to see how many people he has hurt,
and in what ways. This reopening of emotional wounds,
some old, some perhaps forgotten, and some still painfully
festering, will at first look like a purposeless and pointless
piece of surgery. But if a willing start is made, then the
77
78 S T E P E I G H T
great advantages of doing this will so quickly reveal them-
selves that the pain will be lessened as one obstacle after
another melts away.
These obstacles, however, are very real. The first, and
one of the most difficult, has to do with forgiveness. The
moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with
another person, our emotions go on the defensive. To es-
cape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we
resentfully focus on the wrong he has done us. This is espe-
cially true if he has, in fact, behaved badly at all.
Triumphantly we seize upon his misbehavior as the perfect
excuse for minimizing or forgetting our own.
Right here we need to fetch ourselves up sharply. It
doesn't make much sense when a real toss pot calls a kettle
black. Let's remember that alcoholics are not the only ones
bedeviled by sick emotions. Moreover, it is usually a fact
that our behavior when drinking has aggravated the defects
of others. We've repeatedly strained the patience of our best
friends to a snapping point, and have brought out the very
worst in those who didn't think much of us to begin with. In
many instances we are really dealing with fellow sufferers,
people whose woes we have increased. If we are now about
to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why shouldn't we start out
by forgiving them, one and all?
When listing the people we have harmed, most of us hit
another solid obstacle. We got a pretty severe shock when
we realized that we were preparing to make a face-to-face
admission of our wretched conduct to those we had hurt. It
had been embarrassing enough when in confidence we had
admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another
S T E P E I G H T 79
human being. But the prospect of actually visiting or even
writing the people concerned now overwhelmed us, espe-
cially when we remembered in what poor favor we stood
with most of them. There were cases, too, where we had
damaged others who were still happily unaware of being
hurt. Why, we cried, shouldn't bygones be bygones? Why
do we have to think of these people at all? These were
some of the ways in which fear conspired with pride to hin-
der our making a list of all the people we had harmed.
Some of us, though, tripped over a very different snag.
We clung to the claim that when drinking we never hurt
anybody but ourselves. Our families didn't suffer, because
we always paid the bills and seldom drank at home. Our
business associates didn't suffer, because we were usually
on the job. Our reputations hadn't suffered, because we
were certain few knew of our drinking. Those who did
would sometimes assure us that, after all, a lively bender
was only a good man's fault. What real harm, therefore, had
we done? No more, surely, than we could easily mend with
a few casual apologies.
This attitude, of course, is the end result of purposeful
forgetting. It is an attitude which can only be changed by a
deep and honest search of our motives and actions.
Though in some cases we cannot make restitution at all,
and in some cases action ought to be deferred, we should
nevertheless make an accurate and really exhaustive survey
of our past life as it has affected other people. In many in-
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