Simon C Step 9 UK Open Lounge 10-14-26Simon C Step 9 UK Open Lounge 10-14-26
Mad Dog Recovery AA Speakers
Simon C shares his experience of Step 9, explaining how structured amends and prayer-based guidance from the Big Book can move someone from mere relief to genuine freedom in recovery. The talk focuses on practical examples of amends with creditors, family, and past harms, and the impact unfinished business can have on long-term sobriety.
54:21•30 Oct 2026
Simon C on Step 9: Freedom Through Making Amends
Episode Overview
- Step 9 moves recovery from inward-focused work to unselfish action that directly addresses harm done to others.
- The Big Book offers twelve clear categories of amends and five specific prayers, reducing confusion and opinion around how to proceed.
- Unmade amends are linked to restlessness, irritability and discontent in people who are sober but suffering from untreated alcoholism.
- Facing creditors and financial debts honestly is vital, as fear of creditors can become a trigger to drink again.
- Cleaning up all outstanding amends, combined with ongoing Step 10, helps shift self-centred behaviour and supports lasting spiritual freedom.
“There is a real difference between temporary emotional relief that a step four and five will give me compared to freedom when I clear up all my outstanding amends.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This AA speaker meeting gives you a front-row seat to Simon C’s hard-earned experience of Step 9 and why making amends can be the turning point in recovery. Speaking from the UK Open Lounge, Simon describes himself as “the real alcoholic” for whom rehab, doctors and psychiatric units never touched the core problem.
What finally worked was the 12 steps as laid out in the Big Book, and he’s spent over 23 years actively practising them with his home group. Here he focuses on Step 9, breaking down the eight pages in the Big Book that outline twelve categories of amends and five specific prayers to support the process.
You’ll hear Simon explain the difference between the relief of Steps 4 and 5 and the deeper freedom that comes from cleaning up the past. He shares how unmade amends often show up as long-term sobriety that feels dry, restless and miserable. As he puts it, “correct amends makes me free, but not just me.
I get the chance to go and free up other people that have been suffering from me as a direct result of me.” Through stories about debt, criminal offences, family harm and difficult relationships, Simon shows how fear and self-will can block someone from Step 9 – and how the Big Book’s clear directions and prayers help to move through that fear.
He talks about practical ways to approach creditors, family members and old enemies, emphasising communication, consent and willingness rather than heroic self-sacrifice. For anyone working through the steps, sponsoring others, or feeling stuck after years of sobriety, this meeting offers a straight-talking look at amends as everyday spiritual action, not theory. It might leave you asking: which unfinished amends are still weighing on your spirit today?
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