Overview of Step 3
Feeling and Believing: Moving Beyond Understanding of a Higher Power
“Made a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of God as we understood him.”
A newcomer glancing through the steps for the first time might think that AA or any 12-step fellowships are religious because of the way the steps are worded. However, as we learned last week, this is not accurate. Every 12-step program is based around the idea that having a spiritual experience will lead to a permanent shift in perspective, or, as worded in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, a “psychic change.” This alteration in perception is required for sustained recovery, and is quite literally promised by the program itself, so long as the steps are thoroughly “worked.”
What exactly does, “working the steps” even mean, especially regarding abstract and personal concepts such as God or a Higher Power?
Measuring progress is challenging and may be discouraging for some members. However, one cannot see, hear, or physically touch love, and yet, the vast majority claim to not only feel love for someone but be in love. Overall, it seems as if the majority of individuals are willing and eager to feel and experience the subjective concept of love, yet, the same people find it difficult or nonsensical to simply believe, let alone trust, an unseen essence.
Human beings label perceptions as either good or bad, negative or positive. This is an automatic response to stimuli, which can be conscious or unconscious. Identifying good or bad is the equivalent to assessing if something is safe or unsafe, therefore, ensuring our survival.
These automatic assessments tend to be the large barrier between recovery and active use. Many children experience conversations around the concept of love at an early age. Children are also often raised to believe in a higher force or power. Spirituality should be processed and experienced with the same level of openness and vulnerability as love. It is okay if something cannot yet be explained. The only reason we might feel the need to explain our beliefs goes along with the idea of labeling something as safe or unsafe, good or bad. In the same way that there may not be words to logically explain love, the words might also not exist for the concept or belief in a higher power. Yet, just as love is powerful, the belief in a higher power is also powerful; A belief can be powerful enough to rid one of addiction. Even if you do not fully understand it, you can feel it and believe it.
The third step is the first action that can begin the physical and behavioral changes required for sustained recovery. The second step prepares people for the third. It doesn’t demand the complete understanding and trust of a power greater than oneself, just prompts the reflection and consideration of the idea. However, the third step allows individuals to then test their new spiritual concepts.