In this YouTube lesson, Hannah Rose, LCPC, guides listeners through Step 8 of a 12‑step recovery program, which involves creating a comprehensive list of people the participant has harmed and cultivating willingness to make amends. She emphasizes the importance of working with an experienced sponsor to avoid missteps, shares personal anecdotes (e.g., handling ex‑partners and a parent from the Fourth Step inventory), and outlines practical methods for categorizing the list into "willing," "unwilling," and "maybe" groups. Rose warns against common emotional traps such as martyrdom, shame, and over‑control, and encourages participants to invoke their higher power for perspective. The session is positioned as a preparatory step before Step 9 (making direct amends), stressing that while not every amends action is appropriate, the willingness to address one’s side of the street is essential for healing.
Chapters
Hi everyone, and welcome back for Day 9, Step 8. Made a list of all people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Now, just like Steps 6 and 7 often get lumped together— we're entirely ready to have God remove our defects and then humbly ask God to remove our defects, 6 and 7— 8 and 9 often get lumped together. So 8 is made a list of people we had harmed. And then 9 is made direct amends. Now, there are caveats in step 9, which I will talk about tomorrow, but for now we are just focusing on the list. Again, it is recommended to go through the 12 steps with another person who has experience with those steps. Otherwise, sometimes it can feel like blind leading the blind if no one has experience with these steps. For example, the first time I worked the steps and I made a list of people I had harmed, I had a lot of exes on there, ex-partners. And my sponsor said— I mean, I would have gone and made amends to them all. Hey, I'm so sorry, I really hurt you. My sponsor said, Hannah, your living amends to them is to leave them alone, let them live their lives, and don't repeat the same behaviors with someone else. So I needed the wisdom of a sponsor. Otherwise, left to my own devices, my amends would have looked weird. And so, step 8, we're just gonna make a list of people we had harmed. Now, maybe you're thinking, well, I haven't harmed anyone, I've been harmed. Okay. I recommend going to the person that you're talking to about this and exploring this journey with and just Seeing what's there. Oftentimes this step is about taking accountability for our part in things. So for example, I mentioned that when I first did a 4th step inventory about resentments, one of my parents was on there. Now, just because I felt really harmed by that parent, when I looked at the 4th column that really got into my part, I saw that when I remove their behaviors, I also caused harm to them. And so Step 8 tells us to go back to that 4th step list and say, when you remove their part and just look at yours, where did you cause harm? Again, this is tricky to do on your own. We can slip into martyrdom. We can slip into shame. And so again, going through these with someone you trust is Super important, and ideally someone who has experience with these steps. But for the purpose of this course, all I'm doing is sharing a brief summary on each step as well as my own experience. And so this is just a starting point. And so when I got to step eight, I put that parent on my list of people I had harmed, even though I felt like they harmed me first, and I was just a kid, and I'm still their kid, even though I'm an adult. I was able to say, I treated them poorly. I, you know, yelled at them and was— and I was mean to them. And I was able to look at my part. And so when the time came to make amends, I did make amends to that parent. And we call that clearing our side of the street. We'll get to that with the 9th step. So the 8th step is just a list. You can refer back to your 4th step resentment list if it's applicable, or you can just think about You know, is there someone that I would be worried to run into because I caused them harm? Or, you know, who have I inadvertently caused harm by trying to help and trying to fix and trying to rescue? So the 8th step truly is just a list. Now, the 2nd part of that step is, and became willing to make amends to them all. Now we're gonna get into what an amends is. What amends are in tomorrow's session, but the willingness is an important word here. And so my first sponsor had me take my list of people I had harmed and put them into 3 categories: I am willing to make amends to them, I am not willing to make amends to them, or like, I could, but I don't, I don't really want to, but I could. So really Fine with it, not fine with it, somewhere in the middle. And then we took that list into, into the 9th step, and our task is to just become willing. Now, you may not make amends to all of these people because sometimes it's not appropriate and sometimes it will cause more harm to them, but the point is that you become willing to do whatever you have to do To clear your side of the street, and that's where we talk about willingness, open-mindedness, and honesty are the three really foundational principles of this program that are required to truly heal. And so the eighth step is just a list. You can go back to your fourth step, and if you're struggling to come up with things, this is where what I would tell a sponsor is. would be, hey, just turn it over. Remember, we can't think our way into and out of every single situation. Where am I bringing in my higher power, my spirituality, the Tao, the universe, God? Every time we get stuck, can we pause and say, wait, where is my higher power in this? Or am I trying to manage everything on my own? Am I trying to run the show again? And we can laugh at ourselves. We don't have to feel shame or heaviness. We can say, oh, there it is. I'm grasping onto control again. So the 8th step: made a list of people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. This is a quick one. I will see you tomorrow for step 9.
