Amends Are Not Apologies: Finding Real Repair After Addiction

In this episode of The Brick House Podcast, Jason Coombs shares a powerful conversation from just outside Yellowstone, beginning with a personal story about seeing wild bears with his wife during a sacred season of her cancer journey.

From there, Jason leads listeners into a deeper discussion on Step 9, grief, surrender, and what it really means to make amends.

So often, families impacted by addiction are told to forgive, apologize, move on, or “just set boundaries.” But real healing is more honest than that. In this episode, Jason explains why amends are not the same as apologies.

An apology is words.
 An amends is truth plus changed behavior over time.

Jason also unpacks the grief many families carry while loving someone with addiction: the lost holidays, the missed moments, the version of the person they loved, and even the version of themselves that got buried under years of crisis management.

You’ll hear about:

• The difference between apologies and true amends
•  Why grief often shows up as anger, irritability, or control
•  How the stages of grief apply to families affected by addiction
•  Why surrender is not giving up
•  How to begin noticing your own patterns with compassion
•  The importance of making repair through changed behavior, not performance

This episode is for the parent, spouse, sibling, adult child, or friend who is tired of living in the emotional rollercoaster of someone else’s addiction and is ready to begin finding peace again.

At Brick House Recovery, we believe you did not cause your loved one’s addiction, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it — but you can learn how to stop contributing to the chaos and start contributing to recovery.

Learn more at: brickhouserecovery.com