Expecting Amends From Others

I remember that my Dad made a stab at AA back when I was first in college. I was talking to a counselor at school that I could finally relate to (after years of talking to school counselors because of my “crazy” family) and he recommended Al-Anon for me.  But, at the time I thought it was more important for my Dad to get to Alcoholics Anonymous and I just went to kill time in that meeting full of what I thought were cliquish crazy people.

(Photo by Helmut Gevert.)

I remember reading the AA literature and thinking that I couldn’t wait until my Dad got to Step 9, where he would make amends to the people he had harmed. That was the main thing I was focused on, because I felt he had caused so much harm to our family. Well, that never happened because he quit AA after a month or so and since he was my ride to Al Anon I stopped going too.  (Notice that I don’t have a car and often what I do depends on piggybacking on what the alcoholic is doing. This is part of my break from my former home group—I got tired of depending on my boyfriend to get me to the meeting when I should really just manage my meetings on my own.)

So, flash foreword to about 5 years ago, when my boyfriend first became sober. I didn’t have Al Anon but I was wary of it from my earlier experiences. Like many AA members he got a sponsor and started step work right within his first month. He liked talking about all of his step work, which I doubt he would do now that he’s had more experience. (Then he emphasized that he wanted to prove to me that he was working hard at being sober.)  As part of his over-sharing, he told me how it went when he made amends with his ex-wife and children. It stunned me when he said, “I don’t need to make amends with you because you weren’t with me during the worst of my drinking.”

It took me a long time to get over that. Even though I was more mature and didn’t overtly expect him to make amends the way I expected my Dad to do, I was still hurt by this for a long time. What helped me get over it was realizing that he was doing the best he could with the skills he had at the time. I now realize that many parts of his life were very painful and it still continues to be a lot for him to handle. No one can “fix” a lifetime of drinking all at once. I also got over this hurt by recognizing his efforts to be better towards me. He is not one for formal apologies and his way is to just try to do better. But, that is what amends are really about.