You Can’t Apologize Your Way Out of It

Reading today’s Reflection, at first it sounds like it’s about saying you’re sorry.

But that isn’t what it says to me.

It says you need to change.

Saying “I’m sorry” is easy. Changing the person who walked through the doors of AA is much more difficult.

I was told early in sobriety that I had to change the person I brought into the rooms, or that person would eventually take me right back out.

That made sense to me.

If I continued thinking the same way, behaving the same way, and treating people the same way, how long could I realistically expect my life to remain different?

When I think about making amends today, I think about changing my behavior. I must continue changing the person I once was so I can become the sober man I’m striving to be.

For me, cleaning up the wreckage of my past wasn’t all that complicated.

Let’s face it: I got sober at 21. There were only so many people I could screw over or torment during my ten years of drinking and drugging.

My parents were at the top of that list.

They didn’t need a grand speech from me. They needed to see that I was changing. They needed evidence that this time might be different.

I gave them that before they passed away.

I went to meetings. I stayed sober. I went to work every day. I made new friends. I slowly became the person they had hoped I would become while they were raising me.

My mother’s life was cut short by cancer, but I was able to give her something no spoken apology could ever have provided.

I gave her 2 grandsons she could hold and love during the final five years of her life.

There isn’t an apology in the world that can match a gift like that.

That was a total transformation of a human being. That is the kind of living amends I believe our loved ones deserve.

It didn’t happen overnight.

Large changes are built through small actions repeated every day.

If you know anything about carpentry or woodworking, you know how quickly a small measurement error can become a major problem. If you’re off by only an eighth of an inch at one end of a long span, you may be off by three inches when you reach the other side.

That tiny mistake can cause all kinds of havoc.

Now the pieces don’t line up. The joints don’t meet. The entire project starts going crooked.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ruined a perfectly good piece of wood and had to start over.

That is also the magic of sobriety.

As long as I stay sober, I have the ability to recognize when something isn’t working and change direction. I can throw out the damaged piece and start again. Better yet, I may be able to put it aside and find another use for it later.

I don’t have to hang something crooked and pretend it looks good.

I don’t have to force a piece into a place where it doesn’t belong.

I can stop, take another measurement, adjust my thinking, and begin again.

Sobriety gives me the ability to pivot and change.

Drinking takes that ability away from me.

If I decide to drink, I no longer get to make my own choices. Alcohol and drugs will begin making my decisions for me.

My thinking will become crooked again. My actions will follow, and eventually my entire life will be out of square.

Then I’ll have a whole new world of amends to make—if I’m fortunate enough to survive long enough to make them.

I don’t fool myself today.

Drinking is always an option.

It’s just a really bad one.

I choose not to drink on a daily basis. In the process, I have been able to make amends to the people in my life in some of the grandest ways possible.

I gave my parents a sober son.

I gave my mother five years with her grandson.

I gave my children a father who stayed.

I’ve given the people in my life a man they can depend upon—not perfectly, but consistently.

Those amends weren’t made with one conversation. They were built through thousands of ordinary days when I went to work, showed up for my family, kept my promises, admitted my mistakes, and chose not to drink.

Words matter.

Changed behavior matters more.