Change Your Mind

I think Step 3 remains one of the most confusing steps. Maybe that’s just the standard response to things we don’t like, “I don’t understand.” I do know that I struggled with this step the most, especially after I’d stumbled through the steps after this one.

Step 3:

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Where did you find your higher power?

Right where is was supposed to be. Like many of the things I’ve struggled finding in life, this was hiding in plain sight.

I had a perfunctory relationship with God as I was growing up. When I reached this point in my life, I didn’t even know what I was trying to understand. During my early days, listening to others struggling with this concept, I determined to find a different way.

I discovered in the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous (the book Ken D. refers to as the ‘open secret’) a chapter called “We Agnostics.” I also noticed it was Chapter Four. My keen alcoholic mind got to work on the idea that the meetings always started with a reading from Chapter Five.  It seemed like there was something in Chapter Four they didn’t want us to know about.

Suddenly, the reason became obvious. “We Agnostics” was the chapter that explained how smart people could get sober without God. That became my chapter. I read it over and over but I kept missing the part where smart people get sober without God. Finally, I was so frustrated I decided to talk to my sponsor. I explained my understanding of Chapter Four, but couldn’t seem to find exactly where the instructions were.

My sponsor took my book, popped it open to the very chapter I was discussing and with his rather large index finger pointed to something in the book.

“Read that… out loud,” he said.

I took the book and proceeded to read the following… out loud.

If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Pg, 44

There is was. Hiding all this time at the bottom of the first paragraph of Chapter Four. I had been seduced by the chapter title. This was unfair.

I blurted out, “But I can’t do that.”

“Well, then you’re screwed,” said my sponsor calmly. I knew he meant it.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Change your mind,” was his simple response.

Anecdotally, more people are stopped by this step than the other eleven combined. I won’t speculate on why that might be true. I can only share why I’ve continued to stub my toe on this step. More importantly, why this step keeps coming up in my recovery.

Problem One: Is this an action or is it just information?

The Big Book is vague about this. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is more clear calling this step an action. In fact, it says:

Like all the remaining Steps, Step Three calls for affirmative action, for it is only by action that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked the entry of God — or, if you like, a Higher Power — into our lives.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Pg. 34

Either way, this step seems to stymie the new person and as a result, the person who can’t seem to get past this step. One thing that may be consistent with the person who struggles with this step is that they have delayed getting a sponsor with the mistaken belief they can work these steps themselves like a fad-diet or weight-training program. Or they have a sponsor, but have avoided working with that sponsor to move forward with the process of change that is required.

Problem Two: Once I take Step Three can I move on?

Not exactly, as it turns out. In Alcoholics Anonymous there is a prayer.

God, I offer myself to Thee–to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always!

Alcoholics Anonymous Pg. 63

Unlike most prayers, this one ends with an exclamation point and not “Amen.” There isn’t an Amen until after the Seventh Step prayer on page 76. It’s certainly something to ponder. It turns out that the implications of Step Three are greater and more ongoing than I would have imagined.

Regardless of what else happens or how long it takes the individual to decide to move forward with these steps, the importance of Step Three is articulated well in the 12 and 12 thusly:

Then it is explained that other Steps of the A.A. program can be practiced with success only when Step Three is given a determined and persistent trial.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Pg. 40

On the following page, the Serenity Prayer is introduced as one of the ways to “begin the practice of Step Three.”

How can you turn your life over if you’ve been hurt by faith or others?

This could be categorized as “Problem Three.” This always seems like the kind of negotiation that goes on in early recovery. There used to be an old joke about people who were put off by the “God thing” in AA. God would drive them away but the whiskey would bring them back.

In 12-Step recovery this is the solution we have. This is the solution we offer and as the book continues to say,  if you are an alcoholic of “our type” then this is a program we recommend. To be quibbling over the idea of “God” or a former lousy relationship with religion is serious business but for the alcoholic and/or addict looking for a way around it is like changing deck chairs on the Titanic. You eventually need to come to a reasonable understanding of a higher power. There are no parts of the 12-Steps that contain an optional component.