We have usually responded with resentment, anger, and hatred toward the cause of our pain. The more we hate, the more we create layers of suffering and confusion on top of our pain. All this pain and suffering gives addicts more and more reasons to crave the substances or behaviors that temporarily distract them from or alleviate this pain. As we have already learned, pain is unavoidable, but suffering can be eased by meeting our pain with compassion rather than hatred.

This brings us to the necessity of forgiveness. We can learn to meet the pain of our lives with care and compassion, but we first have to embark on the process of forgiving ourselves and others for all the harms we have experienced and caused.

Forgiveness is a process that continues throughout our lives. It begins when we begin to understand how to forgive. The practice of forgiveness has three aspects or categories.

1. Asking for forgiveness from those whom we have harmed (through both meditation and amends)

2. Offering forgiveness to those who have harmed us (meditation)

3. Forgiving ourselves for all the ways we have harmed ourselves and others (meditation and living amends)