I believe part of healing is refusing to let the past dictate how the future will go. This is a big topic for me considering my drunken Christmas incident with my mother in December of 2014. Mary called me in the early morning hours of December first last year to start an argument that I then needlessly escalated and it left us both psychologically wounded. Now that my mother has passed and I have had a chance to make peace with her before she left this world, my goal this holiday season is to send prayers to her thanking my mother for the positive that she did contribute to my life, despite the horrors of our broken relationship that never fully healed.

One month before mom passed away, I sent her the first mother’s day card I had ever given her. I consider this to be an amends as it was the first action I took, that was not full of empty promises I would go on to break because of my inability to let go of some heavy baggage from the past. Just knowing that it made a difference to her is all that matters to me. I knew I might not have much time so I took full advantage of what time was given.

I remember hearing the story of a man who spent years stealing from Walmart. This was before Walmart had top notch security. The man was a junkie who stole merchandise from the retail giant and resold the goods for drug money. After the man got sober and reached his ninth step-the amends step, he approached his sponsor asking for clarity on how to rectify all of the years of theft he had committed. After some discussion, it was agreed that the man would go to Walmart and confess to one of the higher ups of the store what he had done and offer to settle on an amount that they felt satisfied with. So off the man went to Walmart, however to his surprise the manager said there was no amount of money they could accept, as there was no way to settle the amount over a period of years. The man goes back to his sponsor and fills him in on the situation. The sponsor thinks for awhile then comes back to the man and says “For one year, you will only shop at Walmart” and so it was agreed upon and the man fulfilled his karmatic duties!

Sometimes when it comes to amends, we cannot possibly make right what we’ve done wrong. Either because we will never find the people we have harmed or the harm was too great, so a generic act such as donating to a charity on a semi-regular basis that falls in line with the offense or a consistent act which attempts to repair the harm is done to “restore order”. My mother suffered sexual assault as a child and had a history of sexual abuse so my amends to her (in her honor as her son) is to donate to RAINN ( The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) on occasion. This was something my Sex Addict Anonymous Sponsor (SAA) suggested and something I follow through on still.

While this is all well and good, it does not answer the question for how I change the way I think about Christmas moving forward. Thanksgiving for me is a joyous occasion where I meet with family for dinner with whom I have a strong connection to in strong contrast to the connection I had with my mother. I’d love to hear some of my dear readers Holiday stories to bring back the spirit and maybe some suggestions too!