We know that Step 3 in AA’s 12-Step Program is: “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.” If you still have questions about God, Higher Power and turning over addiction, you can read more about what Step 3 is (and isn’t) in “Is There Such a Thing as Healthy Dependence?” If you’re more interested in the “how” of practicing this step than the “what,” keep reading.
Powerless Over Alcohol…and Life
Step 3 actually requires turning two things over to a Higher Power. The program uses the two words “will” and “lives” as two separate things that an alcoholic in search of recovery needs to give up. There really should be no distinction between our “will” and “lives” - for how could we submit one of them to God without doing the same for the other? Still, as flawed human beings, we tend to complicate things. Additionally, abstract words like these are hard to identify in the concrete world of what we can see, hear, touch, smell and see.
When put into practice, Step 3 essentially means “we give up our drinking/using, as well as trying to control our lives, and let our Higher Power take over.”
While some manage to turn over both will and life to a Higher Power’s benign management in one fell swoop, many people in recovery find that letting go of one is easier than the other. For some, it is very obvious that they’re “powerless over alcohol” (or substance use) but they feel they have power over the other aspects of their lives. For others, the opposite is true: it seems life is totally out of their control and drinking/using is the one element of their existence they do have power over.
Neither half-step will suffice when it comes to Step 3. It requires both.
Additionally, many people discover that Step 3 - like most recovery work - is not a “one and done” step. As we work the steps, most of us find we need to turn over both things multiple times - sometimes in the course of a single day!
“To every worldly and practical-minded beginner, this Step looks hard, even impossible. No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is?” - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
What Does Step 3 Look Like?
It’s fairly easy to tell whether we are surrendering our substance use to a Higher Power (we’re either using or we are not), what does it look like to “turn over” things like “will,” “self-will” and “our lives?” Also, what does a “decision” look like?
Here are some things listed in AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions as either ways to surrender self-will or indicators that we have surrendered self-will:
“Already a willingness has been achieved to cast out one’s own will and one’s own ideas about the alcohol problem in favor of those suggested by AA.”
“This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in the speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: how well does it actually work?” Very simply: stop playing god.
“All by himself, and in the light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of willingness.”
“It is when we try to make our own will conform with God’s that we begin to use it rightly.”
“Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problem with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us.”
“In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.”
“As we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.” — Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Now, what does a “decision” look like? A decision doesn’t look like much, but you can certainly feel it. And, once a decision is followed with right action, it becomes visible - to you and the world.
What does Step 3 look like - and feel like - to you? Share them in the comments!