No Promise

My journey to self-reliance and healing was a brutal and painful battle, in the front lines. My armor was honesty and my most powerful weapon was willingness. I stood still were silence screamed in agony and fear took aim. However, I still rose. Each step forward earned me a scar. My breath was a rebellion against my enemy addiction who wanted me to be claimed by death.

Now ten years later I no longer have to depend on anybody or anything. I stand strong. I won the battle and celebrated my independence time and time again. I celebrated for others to see that willingness will win any battle. My wounds have healed. Today my scars bear witness to a battle won. I did not win by luck, no, not at all. I chose to rise when surrender seemed easier.

There is a healing balm we must use and its name is amends. The process perhaps cumbersome but definitely worth. The price a life with scars which no longer hurt.

The amends process to heal the past is laborious. It does not erase the past, but it places it where it belongs, far back, where it was. I worked on speaking from the heart without defense.

Amends can refer to different stages in various processes, including legislative, constitutional or personal. My amends are of personal nature. Gratefully I had no legal issues because I had paid my dues immediately.

"Here, Here," like they say in the rooms of recovery, I am writing and reliving my journey with amends. The journey, a crusade, the outcome freedom.

Let me start with this: "I am Cee a recovered and reconditioned trauma survivor and self-medicator." Yes, I am speaking about recovered and in remission. I am not active. I am in remission.

It took me centuries of suffering to understand that we only have this very moment. Please remain: “Here; Here”. Let me tell you about the experiences which I had lived. Making amends means that we right a wrong done. The way someone makes amends will vary from person to person. Perception and interpretation are both complex. So are amends, very complex. The cliche: "beauty is in the of the beholder," applies to the process of amends as well. In the process of amends everything is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, subject to personal perception and interpretation.

In the rooms of recovery, and there are many, it is stated that we became willing to make amends once we reached step eight. So interesting that the number 8 also stands for infinity. Well, that might be true. However, willingness and integrity have to be established in the very beginning. We are asked, by our sponsor or therapist, to make a list of people we had harmed in step eight. We turn our will and lives over to the care of a power other than self. A higher power greater than humans. We sit down with another person and speak openly about our shortcomings, our failures, our pain, our addiction, our trauma. In short, we speak about what we did wrong.

I learned from my sponsor, Donato, that I must focus only on my actions. No matter, what others had done onto me.

Donato told me: "Never think or speak about what other people had done to you. You are not taking their inventory only your own." Donato reiterated how important self-evaluation was and how powerlessness can empower a person. "Please remain, focused," Donato told me, "no side tracking."

"But others did me so wrong and I just lashed out," Donato heard me exclaim. "Yes, that is correct but not the point," was his answer to my verbal protest.

"We indeed, must focus on our self and that always. I know, I know, others did us wrong as well. In most cases that's fact. I completely understand. However, we must stop trying to control other's actions, speech and behavior. That doesn't work and will never work. We only have control over our response. I remember too well that I had a difficult time with that concept." Donato has a way of empathizing.

There are plenty of stories and biblical stories which provided the evidence for the insanity of control. Injustice is a common story line. The fight between good and evil can be entertaining. However, it had no place in my life right now while I was healing.

"We speak about willingness. This willingness will open doors. Being open and ready or willing will lead to new opportunities, and breakthroughs," Donato explained to me. "Weather on personal, business, or global scales. Willingness suggests the courage to try with a heart in flames." Donato kept telling me about his experience.

"There is nothing which will prepare us for this willingness. All walls will liquify where truth is poured. When we find our self with familiar feelings of anxiety and anger because the truth is painful, it's this willingness which makes the difference. Willingness does not change what we experienced in the past. Willingness only opens the quiet door of a dark chamber filled with pain and illuminates all its corners." "Donato has a way with words," I thought and kept quiet. Then after a while I spoke again.

"We still must step into the chamber and walk through it with courage. As we walk through the darkness holding the light of willingness our courage will grow," I replied because I understood what he was trying to tell me.

Once I began working on myself and decided to admit that self-medicating no longer worked, I found Donato and asked him to walk me through the steps of recovery.

I became willing. Yet the journey was still uphill, and each step was a test of my will. When Donato asked me to follow his suggestions my answer was always: “I will try,” it. “I cannot promise anything, but I will do my best.” Sometimes I fought against what he was asking and other times I just did what he was asking.

Donato often looked at me shaking his head. He suggested different modalities for me to become willing to let go of my control issue. Nevertheless, he understood only too well, for he had been in my place many years ago. He stayed patient and kind when I was going through anger and control spouts. Donato already had twenty plus years of recovery.

Soon came the day when he declared: "So now we are at step eight where we make the name list before the amend process. Write a list of names and call me."

I wrote the list of people who I had “harmed” as requested. Then I called Donato and said: “You know Donato, I do not think that I truly harmed anybody. I know though, that I was engaging with people who were no good. Because they were shady, I lashed out, at some point in those relationships.” The phoneline was silent except for a faint sound, like someone opening a book.

Then, in that pause, I heard a noise. Donato cleared his throat, making a raspy sound and took a deep breath. I could almost feel the air through the phone speaker. “Well, darling,” he said, “I think you must put yourself first onto that amends list. Write down how you did yourself wrong. Forgive yourself. I am asking for willingness. Look up that word. When you understand the word willingness completely and you wrote the list call me back,” and he hung up. His way of telling me to put pen to paper.

I called him back the next day and told him that being powerless is scarry. I said that I often feel trapped when I am in meetings or in my therapist's office. Donato listened and told me to keep going with that list and disregard whatever powerlessness I felt. "Keep going," he said "your mind is playing tricks on you."

I knew what that meant. Donato wanted me to stay focused on the journey ahead. I did what he asked of me. Donato consistently reminded me: “The most incredible feeling is to harness your power and stop giving it away by getting angry. We seize fighting everybody and everything. Even our self. When we feel that we must control and fight situations to bend them into our favor, then we are powerless."

It took me a month to write and complete the name list. In that month I was thinking and reflecting before putting my pen to paper.

My pain, addiction and insanity had taken everything monetary and everything I thought I loved, from me. Lucky me, I was left with the utmost important thing, my life. "This time I will do it right," I thought. "I do my best and I am completely willing. I have my health, my life, and enough money to begin anew. What more do I want?"

On a Saturday morning, I gathered my list and contacted Donato. He did not pick up right away. I hung up, slightly relieved. I felt a little uneasy to read the list of people who I had hurt. He called me right back. “So, what did you write down. Please read it to me. I want to hear nothing else,” Donato had to be firm, he knew I would get side-tracked if he let me. “I wrote myself onto the page first. I was engaging with no good people. I have a codependency problem. I was selfish and need to figure out how I was selfish” I read out loudly.

“Good very good. We are up to an interesting start let the journey begin,” Donato softly said, and I heard him giggle.

“So, I am engaging with people because I do not want to be alone,” I kept reading my written words sounding echoey in my ears. “I have no family in the USA and nobody to lean on. My best thinking got me here. I tried to control everybody and influence them to be my friends. I have no boundaries, and I have little to no self-worth. All I do is survive.”

“Oooooooh, this is good, very juicy my dear. You are rigorously honest. This is integrity writing of the finest kind,” he said, “keep going, keep reading.”

“So, this is the part where I wrote that I have nobody who I can make amends to in person," I read, “My dad has passed, my mother is a sociopath deep engulfed in the trenches of insanity. She is not willing to listen to me. She never was. The people I called friends, boyfriends, ex-husbands are either dead, in jail or remarried and want nothing to do with me.”

“Hm, that’s interesting. Well, I believe you. Cee, you are a very kind and loving person. You have so much love to give. You truly love unconditionally like I have never seen in another person prior to meeting you,” Donato kept going, “But you must let go of the past and make amends. This is more for yourself than for anybody else. I want you to write down the people who you can make amends to on a separate list. Not yourself. Others. Write names only. I want you to be completely willing. If you have nobody you can speak to in person that's alright as well. There are many ways to make amends. You will make living amends and prayer amends. Either way take at least a few days to think about this, then call me back."

“I understand. I will review my list and call you back.”

"Remember just names. First name last name and I want to hear nothing about who they are or what they did," Donato reiterated one more time. "Bye now Cee."

I sat down on my chair by my prayer table and chanted for fifteen minutes. Then I took the Big Book and read step nine. “Made amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” This sentence in the big book indicated that we must be careful and use wisdom when deciding to make amends.

I reviewed steps eight and nine and sat for days in reflection. "Step eight and the name list is just the foundation. It's the start and beginning of reflection, staying willing and listening to my innermost self. I am on the way to acknowledging the consequences for my past actions." I was in deep thought.

I arrived at the point of complete willingness. No more excuses. My hands were silent and filled with stones of heavy truth. There were words unsaid, a slammed door, broken trust and all was echoing in my head. I had made others the reason for addiction, and living in a Coriolis effect.

Now that I am building, a new life, the light has to shine and illuminate the dark corners of my mind and past. Amends are not merely a confession. I am mending a thread where it was torn even if it is just a thread leading to my own life’s work. Some of the wounds must stay, they must rest in peace. These wounds I inflicted on myself.

The wounds which I had inflicted on others, are worked to be completed and healed. My eyes aren’t shielded any longer, and my heart stays wide open. In my healing, my soul was asking me to pause, to stop trading a fresh truth for an old goodbye. A week passed and I readied myself to call Donato.

On a bright Saturday morning I woke up, "ready," I thought. I was ready to read the names and let them rest in peace. I picked up the phone and dialed Donato’s number. It was ringing three times, no answer. I sort of hoped he would not pick up. Then I heard a voice: “Hello, Cee.”

“Hey Donato, I have the final list,” I spoke softly, “I want to say something else before we go over the names and before you give me further instructions.”

“Ok talk,” he said.

“I think that for some amends, a letter left unread, and a whispered prayer is a seed well sown, and it could offer more than spoken words or physical action. My soul has learned that love has grown like an Ivy on the walls of my mind and heart. I want to lay down all my guilt and heavy cost. I want to experience that what I have feared becomes peace. The peace that I thought lost. The list of names carries that peace. It is the map of my journey, past. Each name is a spark, a story, a thread which is the truth I once lost. This found truth is carried within the names.”

“I hear you Cee, this is beautiful, and it is a perfect start,” he said, and he continued, “You read out the names to me and when you are done you go and either write a letter, pray or go and make amends in person. What truly counts is your willingness. You connect with the universe, take the next indicated step and then stay out of the results.”

“Donato, I love you and I am grateful for you.” I always told him that. He was such an inspiration to me. I began reading out the names. Just the names and I stuck to it. The phone line stayed quiet while I was reading. Donato listened. I had over fifty names on my list. So many of them were names without bodies, meaning or attachment. When I was done reading, we prayed together. Then said goodbye and hung up the phone.

I sat at my prayer table for quite some time. I was reminiscing. “Some of the names stay silent on the page, they are still very fragile, and I cannot bring them to light,” I thought. I pray for those names and will treat people who I meet better, moving forward.

“I still hold the names of some dogs in my heart, and I bless their shadows every morning and every night. I value the names of animals, not the names of people. It's my amends. The fur kids live on in my soul, and in my prayers. I could not save them all. I wished I could have. Could have been Superwoman and I was not. We sure meet again when I walk over that Rainbow Bridge,” I said out loudly and determined. Salty streams flowing down my cheeks.

"I live in integrity, and I say nothing at all if there is nothing good to say," I thought, "That is living amends, a better cleaner and spiritual life and I am disengaging."

I took my journal and wrote all the names of the puppies I had rescued. The fur bodies I missed. I lost my dog business, "that bitch neighbor," I thought. The next thought was, "careful, just focus on your inventory." I did not rush; I did not force because my healing was walking a silent path.

I wrote letters which I burned. Letter which I sent and one letter regarding two people who I felt strong resentment against and sent it to a spiritual place. The letter was the two names of people who did me horribly wrong. I set myself free by letting them go but it had to be written out and sent to someone.

My silence found it’s peace because I was holding it with integrity, grace and courage. The list was a release, and the letters and prayers were the final escape from confinement. Reading out loudly to myself was my soul releasing the burden and holding no regrets. For every name on my amend list, either holding love or pain, carries the peace in its integrity.