Step 8
Made a list of the people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
The spiritual principles of Step 8 may be easier to embody when we look at their opposites:

accountability -- blame
acceptance -- denial
willingness -- resistance
compassion -- hard-heartedness
forgiveness -- retaliation

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After taking Step 7, it's time to begin repairing the past...

Thank God, Step 8 comes before the action of actually approaching others to make amends.

My prayer is to have a heart that sincerely wants to set right a wrong and has no need for approval or understanding.
A heart that wants to set right a wrong can stay sober and live at peace with being misunderstood or not approved of. 
This isn't about asking others to make me okay, to forgive me, to make me feel better about myself or the wrong I've done.

"Admission" plays a key role in the 12 Step way of living.
  • Step 1 is an admission to the inner most core of my being - to myself - that I'm an alcoholic.
  • Step 5 is an admission to God, ourselves, and one other trusted person the exact nature of my wrongs.
  • Step 8 is preparation to make amends (an admission of wrong-doing)  one on one with the trusted person I read my inventory to.
  • Step 9 is an admission to those businesses, institutions, and people I have harmed.

The progression through the housecleaning Steps is clear. We move:
  • from a personal private admission of wrongdoing (Step 4)
  • to an admission, a long talk, with one other neutral person (sponsor, therapist, minister, etc.) (Step 5)
  • to a willingness to let go of defaults and "defects of character" e.g. hardheartedness, otherizing, marginalizing, blaming, failing to see myself and others as children of God, failing to see ourselves as God sees us (Step 6)
  • to asking God to remove the obstacles in my path that block me from His will (Step 7)
  • to embrace willingness to set things right (Step 8)
The process is moving me from within myself out into the world at large beginning at the next step, Step 9.

The work of Step 8 is: 
  • to use my inventory to make a file card for each person, institution, business harmed 
  • on one side of the card, write the name, the contact information, and the level of willingness I have to make the amends (from 1 to 5... with 5 being totally willling)
  • on the other side write the harm(s) caused 
  • with your sponsor, minister, etc. carefully review each card in order to be sure what the amend is for. Clarity matters.
  • decide how to make the amend, e.g. by phone, in person, Zoom...  Review words to use as necessary.... jot them down...
  • pray for willingness to forgive each person, to make the amend from a clean, loving, centered heart.  Pause...