Step Eight, Part One--The Whole Pattern of our Lives

My spiritual life isn't contingent upon some transcendent meditative experience, but rather my ability to recognize that the person I'm sitting across the breakfast table from is a precious gift in my life; she is my lover, my teacher, my friend. And yet, how many times do I come into conflict with her? Feeling threatened or fearful. Wanting her to behave differently, thinking she doesn't understand me, doesn't appreciate me. On and on. Here again, I'm confronted with the whole pattern of my life. The blaming and judging. The wish to control.
Kevin Griffin, One Breath at a Time

In the 12x12 Bill Wilson writes about how the process of making a list of all the people we have harmed and looking at the ways we have harmed them can reveal the underlying pattern of our lives. When we take a clear, unflinching look at the way we have behaved in our closest, most intimate relationships, we will also see the whole pattern of our lives, as Kevin Griffin indicates. We may, for instance, see how we have been emotionally distant and unavailable over and over again, which is a good indication that we suffer from the kind of avoidant attachment disorder I wrote about in my earliest posts (and we do suffer when we lack close, secure attachments, although we may tell ourselves we really don't need or want such attachments.) Or we may see how self-centered and self-preoccupied we have been with our partner(s), rarely seeing things from his or her point of view or being willing to give serious consideration to our partner's needs and desires. If we are men, we may come to realize as we do a Step Eight about our intimate relationship(s) how unwilling we have been to do our fair share of household and family tasks. If we are women, we may see how often we feel resentful and unhappy about our partner's behavior and act from that place of resentment and unhappiness.

A good way of thinking about Step Eight in terms of our relationships in recovery is to make a roster of harms we have done to our partner---"the kind that make daily living with us as practicing alcoholics difficult and often unbearable." (12x12) The Bluebook of Recovering Couples Anonymous lists an inventory of wrongdoing which partners might consider when working on Step Eight-------

Four Categories of Wrongdoing

Emotional Wrongs
Venting rage
Holding resentments
Withholding information
The Silent Treatment
Shaming and blaming statements

Material Wrongs
Money--Excessive borrowing, overspending, withholding
Contracts--Cheating or not abiding by them
Disregarding others' boundaries around their personal things
Destroying or violating jointly owned property

Moral Wrongs
Setting bad examples for those who look to us for guidance
Excessive preoccupation/obsession with people or projects which makes us
unavailable to our partners and/or children
Sexual infidelity, broken promises, lying
Personal abuse
Dishonesty and lying
Broken commitments

Spiritual Wrongs
Neglect of obligations
Avoiding self-development
Lack of gratitude
Neglect of spiritual life
Lack of humility
Righteousness

That seems like a pretty comprehensive and specific list of harms to consider when writing down the ways we have harmed our partners over the years.

Finally, Laura S. has an interesting take on Step Eight and the whole pattern of her life before she stopped drinking and joined AA:

I was all set to move on to Step Nine when I heard a woman whose story I identified with a lot talk about the eighth step. I was digesting what she said about putting her own name at the top of the list when she stunned me by adding that she next had to put down the name of all the people who had harmed her, because she had been a compliant victim. Suddenly I saw how many times I had been "victimized" because I had put myself in the position to be, out of self-centered fear, and how much mileage I had gotten out of pity--especially self-pity--for all the "terrible things" that had been done to me.
12 Steps on the Buddha's Path

I'm not real comfortable with this idea because there's a danger of blaming the victim (in this case, oneself) for the harm done to her or him. I'm not sure this approach would help heal a relationship in recovery. On the other hand, there certainly are people, often abuse survivors, who go from one abusive relationship to the next; and it is imperative for such a person to see this pattern and take action to step out of it permanently by not tolerating a partner who is physically and/or emotionally abusive in the relationship.