If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!
I’ve been thinking about amends quite a bit lately, because I have been having to say sorry more than I would like. The main issue is that I have been snappy, so I’ve had a sharp tongue with some people lately where I need to apologize for being a little too spiky with my reactions.
But one of the issues I catch when I say sorry is that I notice I am thinking, “I’m sorry for overreacting earlier… but you were kinda being an asshole.” That’s not really an amends. That’s a fishing expedition for an apology to be sent back my way. So that made me think about how important it is that the Fourth Step comes before the Ninth Step. I need to clear out resentments before I say sorry. Otherwise, I am not doing it right.
It reminded me of an amends I had to make 10 years ago. I’m going to change some details of this story just to be on the safe side. A new neighbor moved in beside me, and I liked him right away. But then I noticed lots of other people liked him, too, and that people were talking about how smart and funny and interesting he was. Well, I’m supposed to be the smart and funny and interesting one, so I immediately felt some jealousy.
I also became aware that he had had a car accident and suffered a significant concussion, so he had memory issues and some other things that impacted his life. To be honest, because I was harboring a resentment against the guy and have had concussions myself, I thought he was being a little full of shit and overly dramatic.
Well, one day he and I got into a heated argument about, of all things, how good LeBron James is at basketball. Yes, I repeat, I had a heated argument as a late 30s adult man about how good an NBA player was. Looking back, it was a ridiculous argument that was fueled by me just having an axe to grind with this poor guy.
So we argued back and forth. It actually got quite heated, and I walked away from him in a huff. I think I thought about that argument for about eight hours, all the things I could have said, what a moron this guy was, what I’d say to him next time… it was pretty pathetic, in retrospect.
By the end of the day, I was in enough pain that I connected with a sober friend and told him what happened. At that point, I knew I needed to apologize. But my friend said he thought I needed to do a fourth step first, and explained that I needed to clear out the underlying anger toward this guy before I could legitimately say sorry.
So I did that, and I found what I said earlier: jealousy, insecurity, pettiness. I felt immediate relief that I was able to name the issues, and I felt my resentment toward this guy subside quite a bit—enough to make an amends the next day.
So the next morning, I approached my neighbor and said I was sorry about yesterday, that I got way too heated, that I liked him too much to bombard him about an NBA player, and that it would never happen again.
He said he appreciated that… but he had no idea what I was talking about. He explained that he had memory issues because of the concussion and had no recollection of the argument I was discussing.
I couldn’t help but laugh at myself, and feel empathy toward him. The concussion issues he was experiencing were real and he deserved to be treated with respect by me. I found my resentments against him were completely gone, and I felt clean in my soul because my side of the street was taken care of.
I won’t lie, though: A part of me thought, Damn, this dude basically has amnesia about yesterday, so I could have avoided the amends!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
Sponsee: “When will I get a good job?”
Sponsor: “When you’re ready.”
Sponsee: “How will I know I’m ready?”
Sponsor: “When you have a good job.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, Jan. 2000, “Ham on Wry,” by Anonymous)
Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.
Share this post