Before we start to make amends we need to honestly face the impact that our addictions have had on others. This isn’t something that we can do right off the bat. In early recovery we are still in denial about many of the effects our using had on ourselves, let alone other folks. Yes, there are obvious things: financial damage, emotional damage, abandonment, infidelities of various kinds, lack of empathy, inability to fill roles in the family and elsewhere, dishonesty and so forth, but there are other, more specific and far more subtle things that may even have affected the people in our lives more than the obvious ones. Continue reading →