Guest guest Posted July 3, 2001 Report Share Posted July 3, 2001 This is in response to Rob and the example of amends he gave where the person replaces the car. I believe that the concept of amends is much broader than this in the AA program. Here is a pertinent quote from the Big Book: " The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. It may be he has done us more harm than we have done him and, though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults. Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. We go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. " Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. " pp. 77-78 The Big Book Here also is a link that Tripple posted awhile back and is a paper written by Little Rock that discusses why the practice of the steps is inappropriate and harmful for Native Americans. , I believe that some of the things Rita is saying about Jews are argued persuasively in 's context about Native Americans. IMO, these arguments work for most women as well. Seems to be some good source material as well. http://www.jpp.org/fulltext-v2/jppv2n2-a.html Rob, I was interested in the incest survivor information you sent. I haven't had time to look at it in detail. I'm glad to see the they don't blame the survivors in the introduction, but I do not see how this program could ever be twisted enough to fit that situation. Likewise, I think that the Native American attempt to rewrite the steps is laboring under a cloud, but will need to analyze further. List, if my other posts on this do eventually appear here, please pardon the repetition! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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