Step 8 and Repair Attempts

Hearing something new in one of the steps is one of the things that keeps me coming back to AA after being clean and sober for more than 20 years. This morning N, who was celebrating his 20th AA birthday, read the following words about Step 8 from the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions: our defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes, including alcoholism... So more than 50 years ago, Bill W recognized what has become clear to people who study attachment---alcoholism and addiction are a form of attachment disorder, a response to our defective relationships with other human beings.

N went on to talk about how he sees Steps 8 and 9 as tools for repairing relationships, especially close relationships. He said that after 20 years of sobriety, he has learned how to avoid messing up relationships with coworkers, casual acquaintances, and other people he meets outside his home during the course of the day. But he still finds himself getting into quarrels often with his partner and his son. When that happens, he uses Step 8 as a way of a taking a look at his part in the quarrel and then taking responsibility for that part. Making amends for his role in the difficulty begins the process of repairing whatever damage has happened in the relationship.

N's experience of needing to use Steps 8 and 9 most often in his closest relationships is true of all of us. We are not saints. We are not going to be perfect in such relationships because our partners, our children, and our parents tend to evoke our strongest emotions, both positive and negative. As a result, we will find ourselves involved in conflict with those closest to us, especially our partners, over and over again. Thus we need tools for repairing and healing our intimate relationships.

Marital researcher, John Gottman, has found from studying thousands of couples that marital satisfaction does not depend on the absence of conflict, but on what couples do when conflict arises. Couples in satisfactory marriages do two things when they are quarreling. First, one of them will make an effort to deescalate the negative process that is developing and, second, the other partner accepts this bid in some kind of positive manner.

These behaviors, which Gottman labels repair attempts, are any statement or action that works to keep negative emotions from spiraling out of control. Acknowledging our responsibility for our piece of the argument and making an amends is certainly an example of this. But Gottman points out that there are all kinds of effective repair attempts. A smile, a friendly touch, a humorous (but not sarcastic!) comment are also ways to reduce tension and make things better.

Gottman goes on to say that all couples, even the most unhappy ones, use repair attempts. What is equally important is the response to a bid to repair the relationship. In happy marriages, couples not only make bids frequently and easily in order to dampen the negativity, but they also accept each other's bids. In unhappy marriages, however, partners do not accept the effort to move away from negativity. Instead, partner B responds negatively to Partner A's expression of dissatisfaction, and they are soon locked into escalating conflict. Both partners come away from such quarrels even more unhappy and more discouraged about their relationship.

Steps 8 and 9 represent a powerful attempt to make things better when we and our partner have become unhappy with each other. But it is also incumbent upon those of us in recovery to be on the lookout for our partner's repair attempts and to respond positively to them. When we do so, we will find that we are no longer caught up in the kind of defective relations that have been the cause of our woes. Instead we will find, as Bill W says at the end of his chapter on Step 8: this step is the beginning of the end of isolation from our fellows and from God.