fugitive247/law

From the page: "Under AA's ninth step, alcoholics are advised to make amends to those they've harmed. Last year, Beebe -- a member of AA -- decided to write Seccuro a letter to make amends for assaulting her."

Mr. Beebe opened up a huge can of worms for the 12-step community. In trying to earnestly make his amends, he not only broke his own anonymity, but that of a twelve-step program whose hallmark is that of anonymity. The Supreme Court threw out such anonymous protection from legal charges over a decade ago. It was their position that non-therapy/medically licensed, non-clerical admissions of wrongdoing are not exempt under laws designed to maintain similar levels of protected confidentiality, such as "doctor-patient privilege" and church confessionals.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Beebe's length of continuous sobriety is not noted. I'm guessing that Mr. Beebe hasn't accumulated many daily reprieves, hadn't thoroughly studied or grasped the implications of Step Nine, has issues with sponsorship (was he even working with a sponsor and/or homegroup?), or was yet another victim of half-assesed detox center recovery.

Step Nine clearly indicates that "[direct amends are made] to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Mr. Beebe injured himself, 12-step fellowships in general, and re-injured the individual for whom the amends were meant.

God, pretty-pretty-please grant me the serenity...