Blog entry for:

i do not wish to do so at the expense of anyone else. so it is a good thing i have a sponsor, to guide me through this process.
i usually write this first thing in the morning, and had i been paying attention to what the world was doing around me, it would have been done. HOWEVER, a bit of self-will run riot when dealing with one of my siblings shot this whole routine out of whack and set-up what has been a frustrating morning with me. finally getting back to taking care of me, and this reading has a certain poignancy that it lacked this morning.
when i did my very first Ninth Step what seems like ages ago, i was confused about this and there was a lot of damage i did on the sly. stuff no one knew about, and my attitude way back when was that if they did not know, how could i have harmed them, so no amends were needed. i mean stuff like sleeping around on my ex before we decided to really hook up and she was away for the summer. how was that damaging? it is true that one of us brought some STDs into our relationship, but it was nothing that 30 days of antibiotics could not handle. although we never spoke of who was the cheater in this relationship, i know i did and never owned it. when i came time to do my first NINTH STEP, after talking at length with my sponsor about damage visible or not, he told me quite plainly that YES there was damage, and YES i need to make an amends and NO i could not do so directly about this issue. there was lots of other damage in that relationship, that i could talk about to her directly and i did, even though it was five years after my first NINTH STEP that the opportunity actually came about. the damage about this lack of faithfulness, other than the obvious stuff was i betrayed her trust, i lied by omission about my part in it and i never gave her the opportunity to decide whether she wanted to continue down the path we were walking. truthfully after i was exposed to the cleansing nature of the NINTH STEP, i did want to go confess all my sins to my victims and be rid of them. after all, they were no longer my burden to carry.
a couple of NINTH STEPS later and working with sponsees, i see how my total lack of disregard for the feeling of others could have caused all kinds of additional damage, had i unburdened myself of all of that stuff.
i could provide all sorts of other examples of bad behavior that i ended up having to make indirect amends for, but this example illustrates the point adequately, when it comes to looking for damage and for asking for forgiveness for the damage i have done, i am the worst judge and i NEED to guidance of my sponsor. so back to work and into what is left of my day.

∞ DT ∞