Amy's Story - Living an Amended Life

Amends making seems so straight forward in the beginning. Do what we have to in order to make restitution, or to make things right, or maybe even to change our behavior going forward. This is all valuable work within the context of the 8th and 9th Steps.

It is exactly the path that Amy followed in her own progression through the Twelve Steps.

Yet as her recovery deepened, as she was undergoing the process of being restored through recovery, she found still more to be addressed. Some of these became living amends, those things we do on a continuing basis as we live sober.

Then comes the work of emotional sobriety, yet another layer and level of the practice of the Twelve Steps, where our attention turns to our ways of being and the old ideas and beliefs which drive us. As Amy describes it, this is beyond making amends, rather we are being amended — who we are is being changed, sometimes quite profoundly.

The point of the Twelve Steps and of recovery is not simply improved behavior, but a psychic change that alters us in fundamental ways.

In Amy’s story that follows, she shares her experience with living an amended life. She tells us what it is like for her to be and to live as a different person, one who has been restored at depth, one who lives increasingly an emotionally and spiritually sober life.