Beyond Apology
How owning our failures transforms us in community
Every human being, sooner or later, has to master the fine art of fucking up.
We have to find out who we are and what we’re capable of the hard way, making mistakes and falling short in ever-unpredictable ways. This isn’t to condemn ourselves, just to point out that uncertainty and weakness are baked into the human condition.
Making mistakes is guaranteed—making mistakes well is something we all have to work on. One big part of making mistakes well is cleaning them up as best as you can, something 12-step recovery calls “making amends.” What I’m going to argue here is that making amends isn’t just about doing the right thing—it is a transformative act. You literally become a better person each and every time you make something right. The converse is also true: if an apology isn’t accompanied by the deeper work of transformation, all it ends up being is placating noise.
The reason we transform ourselves through making amends is because we form and transform ourselves all the time. We humans exist in a much different way than something like a rock exists, because we have a say in what it means to be us. But we aren’t just defined by what we say we are - we are also defined by how our world, and the people in it, acknowledge and reflect what we say about ourselves.
For example, you can declare, “I am a reliable friend,” or “I am trustworthy now,” until you run out of breath and collapse - but if the people around you don’t buy it, or if their actions (and your own self-sabotaging behaviors) expose that declaration as hollow, then it won’t stick. Our selfhood is never purely self-made. It requires the people around us to nod—or at least to refrain from shaking their heads—when we tell them who we are. That’s the intersubjective dance: we are what we say about ourselves in conjunction with what other people will let us get away with saying.
This is one reason that making amends matters so much. It’s not only about you telling the world you’re going to do better. It’s an active demonstration that you’re ready to alter your behavior, show up differently, and earn a new standing in the eyes of others. They, in turn, see evidence of your new state and give you room to keep growing. If you try to do the transformation alone, in your own head, with no real interactions of accountability or acceptance, that change struggles to become real. We rely on others to show us who we are—both who we’ve been, and who we might become.
This is why the process that comes before making amends—what I’d call the pre-9 steps—paves the road for real transformation. Let’s break down the major signposts on that path:
Surrender: At some point, you realize that your best efforts to manage life on your own terms haven’t been working. Your attempts to assert something about yourself (like “I don’t have a drinking problem”) have reached some critical mass of invalidation. You realize, however dimly, that you need to replace your resistance with openness.
Discovery: Once you’ve opened yourself up to new ways of understanding and living, you start noticing your blind spots. You find out that maybe you’ve been blaming everyone else for your troubles, dismissing the motivations of people who say that you’ve hurt them, or that you’ve been repeating the same destructive behavior for years while expecting a different result. Discovering these patterns is like turning on a light in a dark and messy garage: suddenly you see all the old junk you’ve been tripping over for all this time.
Disclosure: This process of renewal first becomes real when you share it with another person - a sponsor, a therapist, a friend, someone you trust who is committed to listening to you without judgement. There is a *risk* in this disclosure, the risk of rejection. But, with the right person, this disclosure is met with acceptance and even approval. Your new self-knowledge becomes the basis for a new identity through these conversations, through being recognized as someone who has achieved a different and deeper understanding of themselves.
Reconfiguration: As you work through your disclosures, you begin reconfiguring your life—your thoughts, your habits, your relationships. You come to a different understanding of what motivates you, what your needs are. You start building something new from the rubble you’ve unearthed. Maybe you quit a toxic job, limit contact with damaging peers, or commit to a healthier routine. The point is that you’re not just acknowledging a problem. You’re beginning to live differently.
Those steps are what make genuine amends possible. If you try to rush straight to apologies—if you skip surrender, discovery, disclosure, and reconfiguration—then all you’re are doing is saying “stop being mad at me”. Without the willingness and work, apologies are just a desperate impulse to get out of trouble.
But when you have done the deeper work, it’s more than just you talking. There’s now a real shift in how you show up. The people around you—spouses, friends, coworkers, family—can start taking you at your word because that word is matched by your choices. That’s the open secret of true amends: it’s not “just” an apology, it’s the public announcement of a new reality, the real-world proof that you’re becoming who you said you wanted to be. There’s an honesty in your gaze, a steadiness in your step, and a consistency in your follow-through that transforms how others respond to you. In that transformation, you create—together—a fresh space for a new self to exist.
This is how making amends re-constitutes the public self. When you show that you can take responsibility, and you actively repair the damage you’ve done, you’re no longer the person whose mistakes defined them. You become someone who’s capable of meaningful contribution and care, whose word bears weight. People start believing it when you say, “I’ll do better,” because you’ve proven you are doing better. Your self-description (“I’m responsible,” “I’m trustworthy,” “I’m not who I used to be”) begins to align with how others experience you, and that alignment propels you forward into a more mature, grounded identity.
Of course, nobody actually owes it to you to accept your apology. Sometimes people are hurt too badly to be open to any renewed conversation with you, or they may be dealing with personal issues of their own - all of that is up to them. That’s why it’s crucial to pursue amends with the consultation of others, preferably people who have experience with working a similar process for themselves. They can help you determine what you do and do not owe amends for, help you identify if you are actually ready to make amends at all, and will be there to accept and celebrate you whether your amends are accepted or not.
Learning to fuck up well isn’t about seeking perfection—it’s about embracing transformation as a shared act. Every genuine amends isn’t just fixing what was broken, it’s forging a new self in concert with the people we’ve hurt. Yes, we’ll keep stumbling forever, because that’s the price of entry for being human. But each time we do the deeper work and make things right, we spark an everyday revolution in how we live alongside others. We stop being trapped in old narratives and step into that sacred space where our promises meet our proof. And in that collective dance of renewal, we discover who we can become—together, one honest amends at a time.
PHILOSOPHICAL ENDNOTES FOR FURTHER READING
1.
Ludwig Wittgenstein famously argued that the meaning of our words (and our self-descriptions) emerges through their use in shared “language games,” rather than merely from any private, internal definition. In Philosophical Investigations, he challenges the notion of a purely private language, pointing out that meaningful statements—and indeed any concept of “truth”—require a community of speakers who can attest to, correct, and affirm the use of words. If I say, “I am trustworthy,” the truth or falsity of that claim is tested and confirmed (or denied) by how others react to my use of “trustworthy” in context. This communal dimension is precisely what ensures that language can’t be a matter of inward stipulation alone. Making amends, then, becomes more than a merely private vow; it is an outward, public exercise that shifts how others interpret our words and actions, thereby redefining who we are in a shared social world.
2.
In Phenomenology of Spirit, G. W. F. Hegel explores how self-consciousness develops through a dialectical process of recognition from others. The famous “master-slave” dynamic illustrates that no person can achieve true self-certainty by themselves; each depends on the recognition of the other for confirmation of their identity. The “master” craves acknowledgment of his superiority, while the “slave,” in the process of serving, gains a consciousness shaped by work and reflection. Through conflict and negotiation, each consciousness reveals that identity is forged—and can be transformed—by how each recognizes (or fails to recognize) the other.
3.
Søren Kierkegaard, especially in works like Fear and Trembling, highlights the necessity of a “leap of faith”—a point where rational calculation and human pride must give way to a deeper trust, whether that trust is placed in God, an ideal, or the possibility of genuine transformation. Kierkegaard critiques purely intellectual or superficial approaches to existential change, arguing that real renewal comes only through what he calls an absurd leap, surrendering to something which by definition will look incomprehensible from where we currently stand.
That’s how it goes for many, including me, when we get sober. We say “I have no idea what a sober life looks like but I have to trust that it’s better than this”.
4.
In Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, he introduces the concept of Mitsein, often translated as “being-with,” to highlight that human existence (what Heidegger calls Dasein) is fundamentally social. We are never “just” individuals; we are always in a world shared with others, and our sense of self evolves in that relational context. The structure of Mitsein implies that our identity is co-constituted by our interactions, language, and the shared projects that define our communal life.
Heidegger distinguishes between “inauthentic” and “authentic” modes of being. In an inauthentic mode, we might hide our misdeeds and vulnerabilities, desperate merely to look good. But in the moment of disclosure—such as telling a sponsor or friend about our failings—we break free from “trying to look like I’m doing what one must do” and in doing so take risky responsibility for our lives.