Misguided Children

My personal research on Step Eight has convinced me that the principle of forgiveness, rather than discipline, is more descriptive of the aims of Step Eight. In fact, the word forgive, in one form or another, appears at least 15 times in our OA book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

There must be a period of healing before making amends. For me to tell someone I am sorry for hating them does not address the painful emotions behind the hate. Many years ago a member shared at a meeting, “First you deal with the emotion, then you deal with the situation.”

In practicing this, I discovered that there were some things I didn’t have the power to forgive. Instead, I pretended that they didn’t matter. I excused or rationalized them. Of course, that only buried them deeper. Then it occurred to me to pray for a spirit of forgiveness.

Suddenly things began to happen. All the rage and anger began boiling up and spilling over. I had to talk and rave and cry about it to get it all out. Fortunately, there was an understanding person handy to help me through it.

When my tirade subsided, I was able to think more clearly. What I realized is that I was holding people responsible who really did not know any better. It was like resenting a two-year-old for acting like a two-year-old. I was able to see my antagonists as misguided children and to forgive them for only acting out what they themselves had been taught. It had never occurred to me to forgive them, and I don’t think I could have if I had tried.

My old resentments seemed to dissolve and float away. It was such a freeing experience that it was as if the events I’d resented for so long had never happened.

The spirit of forgiveness had released me so well that there was no longer any need for amends; the negative emotions were gone — all replaced with love — and, even after 10 years, they have never come back.

Discipline is certainly necessary in working every part of the OA program, but the only Step which really focuses on the principle of forgiveness, as I see it, is Step Eight.

— Reprinted from Lifeline, August 1998