Alcoholics do some unbelievable things. We've left our families, walked away from jobs, started fights over resentments we invented out of thin air, skipped out on bills, become homeless, and somehow convinced ourselves that was just life. Looking back, it's hard to believe the things we accepted while we were drinking. To say our behavior was shocking is an understatement.
We didn't just leave behind wreckage. We left behind stories. Stories that started with, "Did you hear?" or "Can you believe what they did this time?" While we were drinking, we were held hostage by the endings to those stories, unable to imagine our lives could become anything different.
But Step Eight gives us the chance to rewrite the ending. Now the story simply becomes, "They stopped drinking and turned out to be a really wonderful, helpful person."
The truth is, most people will never hear that ending, and that's okay. What other people think of us is no longer our business. We don't make amends to repair our reputation or convince the world we've changed. We make amends because it's the next right thing to do. Every amend, every act of honesty, and every sober day changes our story. Even if we're the only ones who ever know the complete ending, we'll know we did everything we could to make it a good one. And that's more than enough.
