Piers Kaniuka has spent the last two and a half years
as program director at
the Plymouth House, a recovery center in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Treatment
at the Plymouth House consists primarily of working through the AA Big Book
with one of the staff sponsors, or one of the “monitors,” guests who have
stayed on past their own treatment to do odd jobs around the house and help new
guests work through the Book. Piers has his M.A. in Counseling Psychology and
is a certified crisis clinician in the state of Maine. We interviewed Piers
about the amends process and asked him to talk about his own experience as well
as his experience in working with others.
1.
STEPS: Do you remember what your sponsor told
you when it was time for you to make amends?
2.
Piers: My sponsor told me to make a list of the
people I’d harmed, the guiding rule being that they had to know that I’d hurt
them. If I went to someone I’d hurt in ways they didn’t know, I’d be harming
them by trying to make amends. The one exception to this rule was theft. The
basic guide was to do no harm.
3.
STEPS: Was there anything on your list that you
were particularly worried about?
4.
Piers: The most conflicted item I had on my list
was that I’d stolen money and drugs from a heroin dealer. I wasn’t going to
pump any more money into the heroin trade, so I went looking for him to carry a
message to him.
5.
STEPS: How did that turn out?
6.
Piers: I couldn’t find him. He was in jail.
7.
STEPS: Did your sponsor give you any specific
advice about how to approach people?
8.
Piers: In making amends my sponsor said that I
need not be too specific. The people I’ve harmed have a good idea of how I hurt
them. There was no reason to hurt them all over again by dredging up the past.
We needed to say that we know we’ve hurt them and that we want to do anything
we can to make it right. The most important thing we can do when making an
amend is to shut up and let the other person say their piece. Anything they
have to say is OK. They might talk about their drunk brother-in-law, they might
let you have it, and they might tell you that you hurt them in ways that you
didn’t even know. The best depiction of amends I’ve seen in movies is in the
movie Flatliners. Kevin Bacon has to go to a woman from his past. He and some
other boys had been really cruel to her in grammar school. When he approaches
her, she says, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe it’s you!” He says that he hurt her
and that he wants to make it right, but she puts up her hand and stops him. You
can tell that he’s gone someplace really painful to her. She stops him and he
shuts up. Then there is this pause between them, and the scene ends with them
hugging each other and crying. The reason I mention the movie is that I knew
someone who had exactly that experience. She’d taken this girl and flushed her
head in the toilet in grade school. When my friend made amends to her, the
woman said, “It happened so long ago. We were only kids.” My friend stayed
quiet and waited, and they both ended up in tears. This process is really about
creating a space where someone else can heal. The most difficult part is that
we have to succeed in demonstrating that this is really about the other person
and not about us getting out of a jam. I can only do that if I pray.
9.
STEPS: So, what do you say to the idea that amends
is really about clearing our own conscience and getting rid of our guilt?
10.
Piers: I would say those are wonderful secondary
gains, but that the primary focus has to be on the other person. When they say
this is a spiritual disease I think that means that it is interpersonal. In
order to get better, we have to follow up the consequences of our disease in
the lives of other people. Like that part in the Big Book where it says that
this disease involves other people like no other disease can. Warped lives of
blameless children and all that.
11.
STEPS: You and your sponsor worked directly from
the Big Book?
12.
Piers: Yes.
13.
STEPS: Did you find it lacking anything? Or do
you find it lacking anything now that you’ve had some more experience in
working with people?
14.
Piers: One thing that’s confusing in Alcoholics
Anonymous is in meetings when we read the Ninth Step promises out of the
context of the Ninth Step. It says all those things will happen if we are
painstaking about this phase of our development, meaning the amends process.
And then in the Tenth Step, the Book says that we will be freed from mental
obsession. In other words, you can’t really hope to be recovered unless you get
past Step Nine. I wish Bill [Wilson] had been more explicit about that.
15.
STEPS: So if you had to rewrite the Big Book…?
16.
Piers: I would place more emphasis on the Ninth
Step as the step that separates the grown-ups from the children. The Ninth Step
is the biggest faith-building and faith-developing Step. For someone in the
Steps, faith is not belief. In the New Testament Greek the work faith is
pistis. One way to say it is that it is belief plus action. And in this action
you won’t know what the result is going to be. So you have fear, and you have
to pray. Then you take action in walking though the fear, and this leads you to
a spiritual experience. Fear comes up again and again in these Steps. The Fifth
Step is totally scary.
17.
STEPS: Can you tell us about the first amends
you made?
18.
Piers: My first amends involved a book I stole
from a bookstore. I procrastinated until the pain of procrastinating was
unbearable. I tried to rationalize not doing the amends. I thought maybe I
could return the book to the shelf while the owner wasn’t looking, or maybe add
another book next to it so that I’d be even with the store owner. I told my
sponsor that I should avoid the owner because he knew my father and it might be
embarrassing for him. I basically whined to my sponsor, and my sponsor just
looked at me and said, “Is that what we do?” So I went to the store, and I
prayed. I pretended to be a customer until everybody left the store. I went up
to the owner and said, “My name is Piers; I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict.
In order to get better I have to go back and right the wrongs that I’ve done,
and I’ve wronged you by stealing this book.” There was a pause and a real Kodak
moment. He just looked at me and said, “You don’t owe me anything. I respect
what you are doing. Good luck.” It was powerful. It was powerful because I was
afraid, I’d prayed, I did the right thing even though I was scared, and
afterwards I knew there would be no stopping me from finishing my amends. I
knew I could do the difficult ones.
19.
STEPS: What was your most difficult amends?
20.
Piers: My most difficult amends was to the
mother of an ex-girlfriend who I had treated poorly. Actually, I had to make
amends to three generations of women all in the same day. First I went to see
the daughter. Then I went to the mother. I knew I’d harmed her by hurting her
daughter. I also was dealing drugs with the brother, who ended up going to
jail. After seeing the mother, I went out to the grave of the grandmother. The
grandmother and I had gotten along well, actually. On her deathbed, they said
that she was asking for me, and I kept saying, “Yeah, I’ll get there, I’ll get
there.” Meanwhile I was chasing drugs. I went to the grave alone and prayed.
There was a strong sense of peace and presence. Mostly what I felt was a
freedom because I knew that I wouldn’t have to treat anybody that way again.
21.
STEPS: Any other amends that stand out to you?
22.
Piers: I made three amends to people who later
got sober by following the Big Book. I think the amends really made an
impression on them. One of my friends just made an amend to an ex-girlfriend
who he had treated just awful. She said, “Who are you and what did you do with
my friend Joe?”
23.
STEPS: If you had to sum up what you learned by
making amends, what would you say?
24.
Piers: I’d say what I learned from Steps Eight
and Nine was that this process is about becoming other-centered. This is where
we really begin to experience freedom from the bondage of self. Making amends
showed me that getting close to God is about getting close to other people.
This is not a solitary path. I am not meant to be a hermit or a monk. I have
not had the mental obsession to drink or use drugs since I’ve made amends, so
in some sense I’ve been “recovered” for the last eight years. It’s a condition
that could change, but it’s based on my spiritual condition. So as long as I
stay close to God…. I did experience the obsession while working the Steps, but
not after making amends. Also, amends seem to generate a lot of enthusiasm.
25.
STEPS: The Tenth Step talks about continuing to
admit when we are wrong. What is your experience with Tenth Step amends?
26.
Piers: After having made amends, I still have to
write a lot of inventory, but I don’t have to make as many amends. I also seem
to make them in a timely fashion, and I don’t have to go into the whole routine
about explaining that I’m an alcoholic trying to get better, because mostly I
harm the people closest to me and they already know that I am an alcoholic.
Most of my amends now are because of my tongue. I say things that hurt people.
27.
STEPS: I’ve heard you talk about different kinds
of amends, transactional and living. Could you explain what those are?
28.
Piers: Living amends are with people who have
been a big part of our lives and will continue to be a big part of our
lives—parents, partners, children. For these people it won’t suffice to make
verbal amends. There is nothing we can say to make things better. Amend means
to change, so I’ve got to figure out how I’ve been hurting the people in my
life and stop doing it. This may involve a conversation and it may not. Usually
the other person will clue you into that. Some of my sponsees have gone about
making amends and their spouse will come up to them and say, “What about me?”
In situations like that I think it’s perfectly appropriate to say, “I know that
I’ve hurt you really bad, and I figured that I had better change before I said
anything to you.” Transactional amends are more frightening. They involve
finding someone from the past and trying to make things right with them. This
involves making dates. Something has to happen in the interaction to allow
healing. At best it allows the other person to heal. At worst, at least we
assume responsibility for our actions. There could be something of a third
category involving theft. But sometimes it gets mixed in with the other two.
Like when we steal from our parents. And you don’t have the money to make the
amends. A lot of people get stopped by that.
29.
STEPS: People say they don’t have the money as a
way to dodge making amends.
30.
Piers: Right.
31.
STEPS: What other dodges have you heard?
32.
Piers: “What if I have to go to jail?” “I don’t
know where they are.” “They are in some other part of the country.” When the
person is in another part of the country, we have to consult our conscience and
ask if a letter will suffice or do we have to make a trip. I had to make a trip
to Washington State from Maine. Some people have to drive great distances to do
this. On the other hand, if I’m never going to make it to Greenland, maybe I’d
better write a letter.
33.
STEPS: What if you really can’t find the person?
34.
Piers: It happens. I think we have to stay in
constant readiness. One, for people to cross our path whom we couldn’t find,
and two, for people that didn’t make our list due to oversight or
forgetfulness. The only reason I’d have someone wait to take action is if they
couldn’t find the person.
35.
STEPS: What if there is real danger of going to
jail?
36.
Piers: It’s ultimately a matter of conscience,
which demands that we be honest. Some people have families and children, and it
may cause more harm to go to jail. Other times restitution is in order. My take
on the Steps is that it’s about putting someone in relation with God through
their conscience. I don’t pretend to be someone else’s conscience. Pornography,
Republicanism, and being a vegetarian are all matters of conscience. I don’t
want to get into any of that with people. That’s why I think the Steps are not
a moralism. If they were, or if somebody approached me with the Steps in a
moralistic way, I don’t think I could have taken them. Another dodge that you
hear is “waiting for your amends to come to you.” In other words, not doing
anything at all. And “the Step says not to make amends if it will harm them or
others, and I’m an other.” So I was me when I was doing the harm, but I’m an
other when I’m making the amends.
37.
STEPS: That’s weird.
38.
Piers: You hear that in AA.
39.
STEPS: You spoke about your own experience of
visiting a grave. What do you recommend to people who have to make amends to
the deceased?
40.
Piers: I say they should visit the grave,
preferably alone. If they can think of some gesture that would have some
meaning, then they should do it. And I suggest that they don’t talk much about
it, at least not right away. Talking about it seems to cheapen the experience.
It’s like if I see a deer in the woods and I tell you about it, you will
probably say, “Oh, cool.” It takes some of the power away from the moment. It’s
an experience that is hard for other people to appreciate. Anyway, part of this
process is learning to have spiritual experiences and not wear them like a
badge. I’m not particularly good at that.
41.
STEPS: Last question: What do you notice that is
different between people who have made their amends and people who decide
they’d rather not?
42.
Piers: People who make amends are proactive in
the Steps, and they generate enthusiasm. The enthusiasm is contagious and it
builds on itself. Amends is one of those places in the Steps—the Twelfth Step
is another—where people really catch fire. People with a passive relationship
to the Steps, people who sit and wait for good things to happen, don’t do
nearly as well. This spirituality is synergistic. The way my sponsor’s sponsor
would say it is that this isn’t a cheap grace. If you want to know God, you
need to know and help his children. This experience is not just for me. There
was a time when they were thinking about calling AA the James Group, after the
book of James, because of the sentiment that faith without works is dead. I
think that was one of the books Luther wanted to remove from the Bible. People
who make their amends have a disproportionate effect on people around them when
compared with those who rely solely on meeting attendance or the A.A. slogan
“meeting makers make it.” They have an enthusiasm that comes from having had a
real experience. There was a woman who came through the Plymouth House.
Alcoholic, heroin addict, cocaine addict. And her father was dying of cancer.
She was also a mother. Her family life was in complete disarray. She left the
Plymouth House with her Eighth Step list written and ready to make amends. She
was able to make amends to her dad and helped him feel at peace when he died.
She was able to support her mother through her loss and become a mother to her
own children, all at once. She left the Plymouth House and walked right into
all of that. I can’t think of a better demonstration of what this process is
all about.
For more information about the Plymouth House, visit
their website at www.theplymouthhouse.com or call toll free 1-800-428-8459.
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