Made a list of all persons we had harmed,

and became willing to make amends to them all

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Generally, when people go to a Step Study meeting and they begin to talk about Step 8, the conversation will transition to how they made amends in Step 9.

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But Step 8 is a definite step

and it’s a step that needs to be done…

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It looks like if we don’t do that (Steps 8 & 9),

that guilt and remorse in here kind of keeps chewing at us.

After a while it begins to bother our relationship with the world and everybody in it;

we start getting sick in our head.

And after a while that backs up and blocks us off from God

and we end up drunk/high again!

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You know when we read the Foreword to the Second Edition it sounds as though Dr. Bob never took another drink after Bill visited with him the first time. That isn’t true. Dr. Bob had one more drunk left in him. Not too long after Bill called on him and they began to try to work with people Bob found it necessary to go to a medical convention and his wife Anne begged Bill not to let him go. She said Bill, if he goes over there he’ll get drunk, he does it every year. And Bill said, let him go. He’s gotta learn to live in society where there’s always going be plenty of alcohol (drugs). Bob went to the medical convention, got drunk, came back to Akron, and showed up at his nurse’s home. She called Anne, said come and get him, he’s drunk – get him sobered up he’s got surgery in the morning and he’s the only doctor on staff right now that can do this particular surgery. Dr. Bob was a proctologist. Whatever your ‘procto’ is, I’m glad he wasn’t working on mine the next morning I know that. They went over and got him and brought him back to Dr. Bob’s house where they coffeed him and they walked him and they sobered him to the best of their ability. The next morning Bill took him to the hospital to do the surgery. In the parking lot of the hospital Dr. Bob said, Bill I can’t do this surgery. He said I’m sick and I’m shaking and I’m trembling and I’m going to hurt somebody bad. Bill reached in the back seat of the car, brought out a bottle of beer, popped the top on it, and said drink this and you’ll be okay. Dr. Bob drank the beer, went upstairs, did the surgery and sure enough it came out okay. The problem is he disappears. Bill’s waiting on him down in the parking lot. He waits 2, 3, 4 hours. He assumes that the beer’s trigger the allergy and Bob is off and running. He goes back to Dr. Bob’s house and Bill and Anne wait all afternoon. Late, late, late that evening Dr. Bob shows up and he’s sober. Bill said where in the hell have you been? He said I’ve been going up and down both sides of the street making my amends to those I’ve harmed in the past. That bottle of beer was the last drink Dr. Bob took, June 10, 1935 which is AA’s birthday. He never would make amends before because he was afraid people would find out that he was alcoholic (AND Drug Addict) and he would lose what little practice he had left. He didn’t know that everybody already knew he was alcoholic. The day he screwed up the courage, mustered up enough courage to make his amends was the day he took his last drink. Now I would assume if it’s good enough for Bob it’s probably good enough for me (and you) too.

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We offer two choices for writing your Eighth Step list.

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Want to know more? Please contact us so you can be enlightened.

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