Motivation To Complete Step Nine

                  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says "we have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends.  Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in our past.  We attempt to sweep away the debris that has accumulated out of our effort to live on self will and run the show ourselves.  If we haven't the will to do so , we ask until it comes ( a ninth step prayer).   Remember, it was agreed upon at the beginning that we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol."   It was difficult for me to find the person to share my Fourth Step with and to share the exact nature of my wrongs with God.  However, I did and I found a sense of relief through the power of  forgiveness.  Now, here I am at Step Nine and it is somewhat daunting but easier as now I have the experience of God on my side.   The Fifth Step brought a sense of relief, the beginning of a serene life and for the first time since I was a small boy, I felt the presence of God in my life.  So knowing that sobriety is not enough, that I desired to be recovered, that the solution is a vital spiritual experience, and having a relationship with God in whom I trust, I therefore had plenty of motivation and the desire to have the humility necessary to make amends to the people I had harmed.
                I learned through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous not to consider any harm they had done to me and besides it was much easier to do so, as I was praying for and forgiving those on my list.  In the Big Book it states "under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue.  Simply we tell them that we will never get over our drinking until we do our utmost to straighten out the past.  We are there to sweep off our side of the street realizing that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell them what they must do."
               This is how I approached the Ninth Step.  I began with my immediate family, you know life is funny and things don't always occur in the proper sequence.  My father was deceased and he passed before I had any consciousness that I owed him amends.  So I went to his grave and there grieved over his death and our life together.   My Mom although alive was having serious cognitive problems and although I was able to make verbal amends to her the amends came as she sank deeper into her illness and I was able to care for her.  My sister who was shocked in my attempt to make amends to her, so that all she could say was really, really!  And on it went.  To those I could not see and to those that did not want to see me, I sent a sincere and complete letter and prayed for the best for them.  It really did become easier as I moved through the list.  In the Fifth Step, I began to feel serenity and now with the task complete, I had extricated myself, through the grace of God, from the past and I was free - maybe for the first time in my life.