29 Temmuz

Our Basic Text says, "This step is the test of our new-found humility. " This Step Frees us from the guilt we achieved through our harms to ourselves and others. The Spiritual Principle of "Willingness To Try", would be a good start. We had to Practice the Privilege of feeling good about ourselves that our Fourth Step offers.

For many of us our Eighth Step list will nearly double from our Fourth Step list. A word to the wise; don't burn your Fourth Step list, you're going to need it. Our disease will try to convince us that we were the victims.

We must not forget that we, along with our addiction, put ourselves in a position to provoke others. For some of us there were some situations that we as children, or by default, were actually true victims, of others and their addiction. Holding on to these resentments can actually cease the whole Forgiveness Process.

Our Basic Text reminds us that we become ready to understand rather than to be understood. We can Pray to the God Of Our Own Understanding to relieve our aggression and fears. The Healing is in the writing.

Writing unlocks certain parts of our subconscious that are hidden from us. We learn that during active addiction almost everyone we came in contact with, we affected negatively. Some harms were so subtle that we didn't even know we caused them.

As the Forgiveness Process progresses, we see that we hurt ourselves by causing harm to others. We put ourselves on the list and learn to Forgive ourselves as well. We finally can lift our heads straight forward.

We learn True Freedom and are capable of looking at other people in the eyes and face the World At Large.

In This Moment: The Process of Steps Seven and Eight will Help us execute the actions in our actual Amends, in our Ninth Step.