One of the tougher ideas that I wrestled with when I first got into recovery was that of making amends. Oh, it wasn't that I was against repairing the damage that I had done in the world. And I had nothing against paying back people to whom I owed money. In fact, before my parents passed away I was able to repay every dollar that I had borrowed from them. And I repaid a former employer for a truck I'd stolen from his company.

When I went through my steps with my sponsor, there was one area of my life where I really wasn't able to make amends directly. This question came up when I asked him how did I make amends to all the merchants from whom I had shoplifted. Many times when I was sick and I really needed a drink I would go into a convenience store and steal alcohol. I couldn't remember who they were or what I'd taken I'd done it so many times. While this might seem petty to some it was a part of my life that I wanted to clean up. My sponsor, who was a wise man, gave me a good answer.

"There is no way," he told me, "that you're going to make amends to all those merchants that you have harmed."

He explained to me that I could make amends for things like this in another way. After these many years since I went through my steps with him, I don't remember his exact words. But this is the essence of what he told me: he said that I could make amends in areas like this by living my life as a better human being. Because at the time I was working for a nonprofit corporation he told me that by being of service to the world and the community I would be able to mitigate some of the damage that I had done to others.

Many people I work with in recovery believe that they really haven't done any harm to others.

"I didn't steal from my family. I didn't steal from my boss. I really didn't harm anybody but myself," they might tell me.

One of the things I share with them, that I had pointed out to me by my sponsor, is that just because we didn't steal doesn't mean that we haven't harmed others. For example, we harmed our families when we were drinking and drugging by the simple fact that we weren't there for them. When I was under the influence of drugs and alcohol I wasn't there for anybody, even myself. In my case my erratic behavior kept me away from home for long periods of time. How could I possibly say that I didn't harm anyone when I wasn't there emotionally for my children? How many of my daughter's birthday parties did I miss? Was I there for my son's baseball games? Did I give my boss a full day's work when I was drinking alcohol and driving around in a company vehicle? Did we harm society in general by committing offenses that kept us locked up for long periods of time while being supported at taxpayer expense?

While these examples above may seem extreme to some, the idea that those of us who are addicts and alcoholics have done no harm is ludicrous. I believe that if we have the perspective that we have harmed no one but ourselves in our disease, then we still have a lot of reevaluating to do.

Today I try to follow the admonition of Dean, the sponsor who gave me good advice so many years ago, God rest his soul. His advice, to reiterate, was that I could make amends for the abstract and hard to define harms I'd committed, by becoming a better human being. The reality is, that during my drinking and drugging forays, I really couldn't remember all of the people I had stolen from or had harmed in other ways.

But, hopefully, I can make up for some of the messes that I left behind by being a compassionate and generous human being today. By spending the time and energy to help others in recovery I can make a small difference in the world.