The Shock of Step Three

Step Three says we "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." (Italics in the original).

Sounds easy, doesn't it? We don't have to do very much at this point, merely "make a decision". But in that sentence is concealed a major shock for many people. We have to absolutely give up on the idea that we can control anything, except, in limited ways, ourselves.

We can't control other people, places and things, as we saw in Step Two. Moreover, in Step One we realized that we were powerless over alcohol, and our lives had become unmanageable. We'd made a complete mess of our lives. We'd failed the people who needed us, we'd neglected our work and our household, we'd repeatedly risked everything so we could carry on drinking, drugging or behaving codependently, and we'd forgotten the all-important truth - maybe, indeed, we never knew it for the truth - that we can do nothing without help from our Higher Power.

In America, I found that most people in AA had no problem in believing in God. Despite vigorous efforts from secularists, Christianity there is far from dead. Most people in the rooms of AA in America take Jesus as their Higher Power; many take God the Father; the relatively few agnostics or atheists take the group as their Higher Power.

In England, we're well on the way to discarding religion completely - except, of course, for Islam, which everyone knows they'd better show overt respect for, even if they don't know anything about it, as otherwise they could be targeted by militants.

At English AA meetings, I did find that today most alcoholics here do accept the concept and the reality of a personal God, whether they call that God Jesus, Our Father, or simply "the Almighty". But there's a growing and highly vociferous number of resentful newcomers who are unwilling to even try to believe in any Higher Power. Reluctantly, they may accept the group as such, but many have been so turned off by having misguided religious ideas forced on them at an early age that as adults they have very little faith in anything.

And yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, they still have faith in themselves! So many newcomers and older "dry drunks" persist in believing that they just had a run of bad luck, that next time will be different, that they can stay sober by themselves, with the occasional meeting from time to time because their counsellor recommends it, but with no submission at all to a Higher Power.

What arrogance! What insanity!

 Relying on ourselves was what got us into our mess in the first place. Relying on ourselves to get sober and stay sober is like asking the drunk on the corner to take over our lives for us - because that's who we are, just another common-or-garden drunk, or codependent, or addict. The I's that speak to us from our inner addict tell we can manage quite well without any sort of God. That God is a man-made idea, rather than Man being God's idea! And then they relapse, and have to rethink their position.

The first Three Steps have been summed up as "I can't; God can; I think I'll let Him".

But first we need to get out of the driver's seat! That alcoholic, that codependent, is driving our bus for us, so we need to get off and ask the God of our understanding to please take over.

Without the necessary humility we will never reach this Step. There are many people in AA who are not really recovering at all, but simply doing the first two steps over and over because they can't bring themselves to acknowledge the existence of a loving God, let alone humbly ask that God to run their lives for them.

In many cases, it is sheer laziness that prompts this blind attitude. If we really don't believe in a personal God, have we even tried? Have we prayed for faith? Have we talked to our sponsor and asked how he or she came to believe in God? (Tip: if the sponsor doesn't believe at all, find another sponsor fast).

Reading the chapter "We Agnostics" in the AA Big Book can be very enlightening. Others have faced the same dilemma and overcome it. Sometimes people have had startling spiritual experiences that immediately confirm the reality of God. Mostly, we find Him through our intuitions, understandings, through wise words heard at a meeting, from our sponsor, or by reading spiritual books and keeping an open mind.

But the open mind is a necessity here. We can't just close it and say we are own Higher Power. Our lives up to this point have shown how wrong that is.

And the God to whom we entrust our lives must be a loving, compassionate God, someone who wants the very best for us, who can be our best friend and inner guide, leading us gently out of the chaos of addiction to the sanity of sobriety.

So in order to be able to sincerely take Step Three, we must have the first two steps firmly in place. And then, if we're agnostic or atheist, we vow to keep our minds open to the possibility of God, and meanwhile place our trust in the group or in AA as a whole.

If we persevere, most of us will come to believe in that God and will have a direct, personal relationship with Him.

As the Big Book says, "May you find Him now".

And that experience of God, when it comes (and it will come for those who really want it and persevere in their efforts to find Him) is a wonderful shock! How happy we are to have been wrong!