[We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
[We] Made direct amends….
“To make amends” is an idiomatic expression. Grammar allows for modification of both the noun amends and verb made, although modification is uncommon in casual speech.
“She definitely made amends for doing that.”
“I was so awful, I made big amends to him.”
Direct, as an adjective, is most immediately interpreted as “straight, proceeding by the shortest route, undeviating.” In this use, direct carries the added nuance of “without intervening persons, influences, factors, etc.; immediate; personal.”
Furthermore, direct has two additional shades of meaning: “straightforward, frank, candid,” and “characterized by close logical, causal, or consequential relationship.”
[We] Made direct amends to such people….
With the other exception being Step Six, this marks Step Nine as one of only two Steps to reference another Step; all others can stand alone. “To such people,” means “to people of the character, quality, or extent previously indicated or implied.” The problem is: no people are indicated or implied previously in this sentence. Such may also mean “of a kind or character to be indicated or suggested,” or “having a quality to a degree to be indicated,” but the problem this time is: no people are indicated or suggested later in this sentence, either.
There is a “kind or character” of people indicated in the Step immediately preceding: all persons we had harmed. No “kind or character” of people is mentioned in the Step immediately following. Thus, we made direct amends to “all persons we had harmed.”
[We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible….
Wherever possible is a conditional clause (technically named “protasis,” but sometimes called simply “a conditional”). It provides a circumstance that is a prerequisite or contingency for another event to happen. Conditionals in English often begin with “if”.
“If it’s sunny, we’ll go to the beach.”
“If you come to the beach, meet us there.”
To begin a sentence or phrase with the conditional if lends more of an alternative, less certainty, to the conditional outcome than the use of where or when, no matter how final or inescapable the outcome may seem. The distinction is exemplified by the cliché, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” If leaves the possibility that the condition will never be met; when says the condition will be met, and only the time is unknown.
“If the river rises, we’ll be flooded.”
“When the river rises, we’ll be flooded.”
Although they have different meanings, when and where seem interchangeable to produce the same conditional:
“When the water is calm, you’ll swim more easily.”
“Where the water is calm, you’ll swim more easily.”
When has to do with time, of course, and where with place. That distinction appears more muddied in the compound forms using ever. Ever, as an adverb by itself, is much more concerned with time than place, meaning “always, continuously, at all times, at any time.” Whenever becomes, “at any time, at every time, at whatever time,” while wherever means, “in, at, or to any place or all places, or whatever place,” but also “in any circumstance, in any case, in any condition.”
Similar conditional idioms in American English are, “if circumstances permit,” and “if the situation allows.” These phrases refer to a given place, circumstance, case, or situation, not “any, all, or whatever” situation(s), etc.
The conditional, wherever possible, is synonymous with “if possible.” The only condition is that the action can happen. This is tantamount to no condition at all.
Why would such a seemingly superfluous phrase be added? The Twelve Steps are alleged to be carefully crafted instructions for alleviating a life-threatening disorder; the wording is simple and unencumbered with hyperbole or metaphor. While it can’t be posited that every word is both necessary and sufficient, we can offer the premise—with reasonable assurance—that superfluous words are out of character with the rest of the script.
Given the prevalence, influence, and adherence to these words as they are—even if their statistical efficacy “for alleviating a life-threatening disorder” is unestablished—it isn’t unreasonable to consider these instructions “carefully crafted,” as previously alleged. (The history of how much care, editing, and oversight went into these instructions can be gleaned from still extant archives, and other published sources, but the promulgation of that history is infinitesimal compared with that of the Steps themselves.)
In addition to care in phrasing, these instructions are also (carefully) ordered. They are referred to as Steps, and are meant to be undertaken in the order given, not haphazardly. Thus, when reference is made to prior Steps, one is already familiar. In Step Nine the prior reference “such people,” is to Step Eight’s “all persons we had harmed.”
Step Eight does not merely say “persons we had harmed,” but ALL persons; the Step does not say “all living persons.” Surely, murder is a harm.
Step Eight doesn’t seem to exclude the practitioner from listing the dead who have been harmed—or to become willing to make amends to them.
How one makes amends to the dead, or to the living, is not the issue in Step Eight: the instruction is to become willing to make amends. How one follows the instruction and completes the Step after making a list is an internal exercise, a very subjective and personal undertaking: “became willing to make amends to them all.”
Only in Step Nine is the actual making amends called for, and those amends are now further qualified as “direct amends.” If the list of “such people” from Step Eight includes any who are dead, making direct amends is not possible.
[We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when….
Having established that the opening clause is virtually unconditional—the only condition being impossibility—the second clause opens with the introduction of a possible condition, an exclusion other than impossibility.
[We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them….
The exclusion is another return to a concept from the previous Step: harm and injury. If we combine the references, the result appears akin to a tautology: “We made direct amends to [all persons we harmed] wherever possible, except when to [make direct amends to all persons we harmed] would harm [all persons we harmed]….”
Thankfully, the language of humans is not as strict and unforgiving as the language of machines. (Unfortunately, this elasticity can also cause misunderstanding.) The only stretch needed, in this instance, is for referencing “them.” It is easily understood that “them” refers to any, not all. The action is to be taken EXCEPT when taking the action would harm (or injure) “any persons we had harmed” previously.
This is a remarkable exception. There is no further clarification offered here or elsewhere in the Steps. There are clarifications offered outside the Steps. Does this render the Steps less than whole or self-contained?
The language here, while it may seem confusing, does not make reference to any action, process, or individuals that haven’t been previously defined or mentioned. There is no need for instructions outside the Steps to understand the references: “such people,” “to do so,” “them,” or “others.”
[We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
The end of the exception clause makes more sense: “or others.” This refers to people “other” than “all persons we had harmed.” This exception, unlike the first, is a logical caveat: don’t harm other people in making amends to those previously harmed.
Once upon a time, on a warm Spring day at the beach, I decided to jump in the ocean from a rock jetty. It took some time to find a relatively safe place to leap from, and I was a pretty good ways out when I found it, so I had time to think about the jump. I took a good strong leap and landed over my head in water that felt about 20 degrees colder than I thought it would be! I high-tailed it to the sand as fast as I could and only then realized there was almost no one in the water—a genuine sign, if I had seen. From this I learned the deeply metaphysical lesson: thinking about jumping in the water, and actually jumping in the water, are two different things!
So it is with these Steps. On these pages, we’re parsing the words and phrases in rather dry terms to get at the meaning: what, exactly, are these sentences saying to do? That’s only half the battle: “knowin’ ain’t doin’.”
How many meetings, how many YEARS, did I bristle inside, or sink down in my chair as people talked about their experience—their DOING—of Step Nine? When, meeting after meeting—YEAR after YEAR—I was unable? I had tried and failed and didn’t have a clue that the fear which paralyzed me whenever I thought of trying again was, itself, a shortcoming that I could humbly ask That Greater Power to remove.
Yes, there are a number of things meetings won’t (can’t) do—at least twelve things: meetings can’t do the Steps for me. Everyone has to do his or her own. Someone said, “There’s no substitute for showing up.” I’ll not get vicariously from the meeting what I get when I’m actually there—and I cannot vicariously accomplish the Steps, at all. The Steps are not a video game I play via some avatar. I jump in the water, or I do not.