A bedrock part of the 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous program for getting sober and staying sober is making amends, admitting faults and transgressions.
Step 8: Make a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Louis Bostich got sober in A.A., and his conscience began tormenting him to the point he knew he would drink again if he didn’t make amends. He went to a church, told the pastor to call the police, he had something to tell them. They came, and he confessed that twenty years ago, he murdered a woman in a drunken haze. He’s now doing fifteen years in prison.
A spokesman for Alcoholic Anonymous said he and other officials at the organization, which cites confessions of recovering alcoholics through its “Big Book,” could not recall a case in which someone had accepted responsibility for such a serious crime.
