September 16, 2005

• A few hours ago, I had started writing a new blog when the power went
  out.  That has been happening a lot lately, and Greyfox said that
  at his end of the Valley our ISP was down today, too.  I have no
  way of knowing how often such outages occur in more civilized areas,
  but I suspect that we’re somewhat more subject to them here in the
  boonies than most people are.

  Hilary
  the mother cat’s aggression against our dog Koji continues.  A few
  minutes ago, Koji was standing by me in the kitchen and no kittens were
  anywhere near.  Hilary walked up behind Koji and bit him on his
  heel (that backward-facing “knee” on a dog’s hind leg, whatever it’s
  properly called).  Then she jumped onto a convenient surface
  knee-high to me.  When Koji turned toward her, she whacked him
  across the snoot. 

  
  My urge was to backhand the little feline bitch across the room, but I
  lifted her gently by her scruff, carried her out the front door and
  deposited her on the step.  I know that similar temporary banishments to the
  outer regions have taught Koji some valuable lessons in manners. 
  I also know that cats only learn what they want to learn, so…. who
  knows?

  I’m sorta nostalgic for the time (pictured here) before Hilary had her kittens, when she and Koji were friends.

  ---

  Feedback on Feedback

  The dialogue on sorry apologies continues.  The focus has gone
  from my general observations about language and social peculiarities to
  a more specific discussion of twelve-step “amends”.  I welcome
  this, because in discussing it Greyfox and I are obtaining more content
  for our Addicts Unlimited website.  One of our primary purposes
  for that site is to provide reviews of every treatment and recovery
  program we’ve encountered. 

  Of course, the twelve-step programs are
  ubiquitous, and we both have long-term and in-depth familiarity with
  them.  Today, Greyfox posted an entry at his ArmsMerchant
  site about steps 8 and 9, which will eventually become part of the
  content at AuWay.org (that’s not a link because there is still nothing there
  to link to).

  Here is my launch point — the blue is where she disagrees with Greyfox; the red is where I disagree with her:

  I disagree most wholeheartedly with Greyfox! The
  whole process & progress of the Steps is to remove our character
  defects and help us become more real, more spiritual human beings. I
  always thought Bill W. put the word “direct” in front of amends to
  indicate that you have to DO something — “I’m sorry”, said to somebody
  else besides the person you hurt, just isn’t good enough. In order to
  be thoroughly rid of whatever it is that drove you to do those hurtful
  things, having to participate in some action of repentenance is
  necessary work to grow past whatever it is that drove you.

  As
  you say, the most sincere amends is to stop doing what you did to cause
  the other person hurt. Sometimes, just the act of acknowledging what
  you did and that you now realize how hurtful it was are the best amends
  of all. Repayment is also soul-cleansing, if possible. In every
  instance, the objective is to create a situation of caring for the
  other person, as a counterbalance to a relationship of manipulation,
  disdain, emotional abuse, physical abuse or whatever it was.

  I’ve
  had to quit saying “I’m sorry.” It’s so glib, so flip, so meaningless.
  The apologies I give outline what I think I’ve done that was hurtful,
  and conclude with something on the order of “it wasn’t my intention to
  hurt you and I apologize for my actions.”

  I don’t feel like I
  captured what I mean with these words, but it’s a start. And the
  comments section really isn’t meant for treatises, is it?

  Posted 9/15/2005 at 10:24 PM by Archaeologist

  Maybe it’s unfair to pick this apart, since Kate says that it doesn’t
  capture what she meant.  Fair or not, it’s there and I’m going to
  use it.  Not only does she not say what she means, I’m pretty sure
  she didn’t understand what I wrote, either.  I have to assume that
  what she wholeheartedly disagreed with was this paragraph, which is the
  only place in that entry where I paraphrased or quoted Greyfox:

  Regarding amends in the 12-step programs, as I said in yesterday’s
  blog, many people think that saying you’re sorry is enough. 
  Greyfox has told me that this interpretation of steps 8 and 9 is just
  to relieve the transgressor’s guilt and isn’t meant or expected to do
  anything to redress actual wrongs.  I have enough respect for AA’s
  founders to think that they had something more concrete in mind. 
  In my opinion, it would take a very sick and twisted mind to find any relief from guilt in merely saying, “I’m sorry.”

  Kate, it may be different in AA groups that you’ve
  attended.  The
  autonomous nature of individual groups is built into the Twelve
  Traditions.  In groups I have attended, the majority of As
  INTERPRET “amends” as “apology” and INTERPRET “apology” as saying, “I’m
  sorry.” 

  I have taken on sponsees whose previous sponsors relapsed.  I’ve
  been told by sponsees that they had been told that making amends means
  saying you are sorry.  I have heard other people say in meetings
  how hard it was for them to go to people they had wronged and say they
  were sorry.  I think it is reasonable to infer from those things
  that these people think that “amends” means saying you’re sorry. 
  Beyond implication and inference, I have heard still other people state explicitly 
  that making amends means saying you’re sorry.

  Never mind that such hollow and meaningless words don’t do anything to
  make real amends, what I’m getting at here is that in my experience and
  Greyfox’s (which is much broader and longer-term than mine)  many
  if not the majority of people in twelve-step groups think that making
  amends means saying you’re sorry.

  
  Attributing the wording of Step Nine (or any of the other eleven steps)
  to Bill W. may be an error.  This is a DIRECT quote from Bill W.:
  
  
  

   ”The early AA got its ideas of
  self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for
  harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Group and
  directly [emphasis added] from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and from
  nowhere else.” (Friends in Recovery, 1988, p. xxi)

  
  
  Regardless of who first came up with the phrasing, I am going to assume
  that somewhere down the line in proofing and editing if ACTIVE had been
  meant, then that would have been what went into print.  “Active” implies doing something.  “Direct” implies immediacy as in this sense from onelook:  “adjective:  
  immediate or direct in bearing or force; having nothing
  intervening.”
  
  
  
  Bill’s usage in the direct quote above also
  supports by its context my inference that he understood that meaning of
  “direct.”  In other words, if Bill (or whoever) had meant
  “to
  indicate that you have to DO something,” he would have used “active” or
  another word of similar meaning, and not “direct.”  DIRECT amends
  means, to everyone in every AA or NA meeting where I’ve ever heard a
  discussion of the ninth step, making amends directly to the person who was wronged. 
  This is also supported by the context, the rest of that sentence,
  “except when to do so would injure them or others.”  That I meant
  this sense of “direct” in what I wrote is also supported by my context,
  in that I went on to mention the various sorts of indirect  amends taught and practiced in our NA group.

  Gawd, I love semantics!

   
  [Archaeologist or anyone else who may have misinterpreted what I originally wrote and now finds that disagreement to have been misplaced:
  Check out Greyfox's latest blog.  There's something there for any twelve-step True Believer to really disagree with.]

  ---

  Doug and I are both antsy this evening, feeling restless and looking
  for reasons why.  We checked newsfeed but none of the headlines
  resonated.  It may be something local that’s tweaking our psychic
  antennae.

  Anyhow, he was browsing through our CD collection for some diversion
  and found one that’s been around for years and never been out of its
  shrink wrap.  This restlessness isn’t exactly comfortable, but as
  an “ill wind” it has blown in some pretty good music.

  • 10:23 pm
  • 8 Comments