Trouble Making a Ninth Step Amend Means You’ve Got a Seventh Step Problem — You Just Don’t Want to Change — Mike S. and David M.

About This Speaker Tape

Two speakers, Mike S. and David M., share their experience with Steps 8 and 9 at a meeting in Conyers, Georgia. Mike details his sponsor Frank's rigorous approach to making amends: writing harms on index cards, reading them face-to-face, asking what was left out, then asking what he can do to make it right. He emphasizes going into amends with an "unprotected heart" and trusting that Higher Power has his back, a lesson he learned through harrowing amends in San Francisco.

Mike describes turning himself in to the SFPD on outstanding warrants for assault on a police officer, pimping, pandering, and bootlegging — only to have everything reduced to disturbing the peace. Emboldened, he visited the mob boss Gino, who ran the strip clubs where Mike had stolen thousands of dollars. Gino was stunned that anyone would voluntarily come back and confess, called it even, and warned him never to show up drunk again. Mike also shares a pivotal amend to his ex-wife, whose blunt response — just pay your child support on time and we never have to talk — taught him Frank's definition of honesty: do what you say you're going to do.

David picks up the theme with his own amends on Indian reservations near Fresno, where he had sold ragweed and stolen from a friend. He shares a remarkable story of returning to a house in Santa Rosa where a woman had taken him in as a drunk sixteen-year-old — only to discover she was a thirty-year Al-Anon member whose own son was currently in treatment. His amends to a high school teacher who barred him from prom led to an invitation to coach soccer, and a parent later told him he was a better influence on their kids than half the teachers. The session closes with an open Q&A covering amends to parents and children, the role of saying "I'm sorry," financial amends to the IRS, amends to dead relatives, and the humbling discovery that many people we thought we harmed barely remember the incidents at all.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Sober Sunrise podcast introduction
• 0:30 Mike S. begins speaking on Steps 8 and 9, explains his sponsor Frank's method of writing harms on cards
• 3:00 Frank's amends format: read the card, ask what was left out, ask what to do to make it right
• 6:00 Mike turns himself in to the SFPD on outstanding warrants — everything dropped to disturbing the peace
• 9:00 Mike visits mob boss Gino above a North Beach strip club to confess stealing thousands of dollars
• 13:00 Mike's amend to his ex-wife and Frank's definition of honesty: do what you say you're going to do
• 16:00 Going into amends with an unprotected heart — learning Higher Power has his back
• 20:00 David M. begins — amends on Indian reservations near Fresno, selling ragweed, making it right
• 25:00 David returns to a Santa Rosa house where a woman sheltered him at 16 — discovers she was 30-year Al-Anon and her son is now in treatment
• 30:00 David's high school amends lead to coaching soccer; Q&A on amends to parents, saying sorry, financial amends, and amends to the dead