Mar 01 2010
Step Three
“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
Welcome to the “Using Al-Anon’s Steps in Our Personal Lives” blog. Many people are aware of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and understand how they apply to the alcoholic’s goal of finding sobriety, but few are aware that Al-Anon Family Groups adapted these Steps in 1951 as a program of personal progress and family recovery.
This series of podcasts discusses how Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps have helped people successfully handle a variety of challenges associated with the family illness of alcoholism.
The topic of today’s podcast is Step Three.
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14 comments
I am so very grateful that “just for today”, I have a program of recovery. I may not work it perfectly but today, I have a program! Every morning when I wake, I say “thank you” to my HP, the God of my understanding, for Al-Anon and for the 12 steps that bring peace and serenity to our home today. Thank you for my life, God!
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For years, I was unhappy and depressed- angry. No one in my life was doing anything that I wanted them to! Now, after coming to Al-Anon, I awake with a smile on my face and a thank you song in my heart! I feel differently about things. I feel good. Its funny that not too much in my life has really changed- except my attitude towards myself and others. As they say in Al-Anon, “changed attitudes can aid recovery.”
Step Three is a step that I willingly take every day, along with Step One and Two. There is a short form of the first three steps that I love: I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him! This is a great reminder to me that I can’t do it alone. I simply make the decision to let God run my life, just for today.
One great Al-Anon slogan that I can use for Step Three is “Let Go and Let God.” I keep a “God Can” on top of my refrigerator, and if I am having trouble letting go of a situation in my life, I can write about it and drop it in the can. I say a little prayer like “your will, not mine, God.” or “Take care of this person, God, as only You can!” Then I go about my day, doing the “next right thing” in front of me to do. Just for today, I’ll let God be in charge.
I love hiking in the forest covered mountains. Each bend in the path opens up to a new discovery; a glimpse of a winter wren, the tiniest bird I know, a turkey scampering away, the sound of a rushing brook or a brilliant mushroom in a 2-day show-stopping display. When I walk away from my car for a hike or I come around a bend in the path I turn over my life to this magnificent creation we call Earth. Step 3, Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him, is coming around a bend in our path in life. When I first considered Step 3 it sounded scary, like jumping off a cliff into a fearful violent death if my faith were not strong enough in the care of God as we understand Him. I love the gentleness of our steps, “turned over”. Like turning over stone to see who is living under it. It is not a big step but it is important.
While married to my first wife, an alcoholic, I feared every next encounter with her. What would her mood be? Eventually, with the benefit of attending numerous Al-Anon meetings and working the program, I learned to turn my will and my life over to the care of HP, one encounter at a time. I was not able to turn it over immediately but I was able to spend less and less time in fear and more quickly turn it over when she was in an unpleasant mood. Today I am constantly challenged to turn over important parts of my life; my current wife, my daughter, my job, people’s reaction to me. It is never easy but the collective voices of experience; strength and hope that come to mind help me to accept my life in a balanced way.
Life is like a journey through the woods and Step 3 is about deciding to accept life on life’s terms with the good and the bad.
Newcomers at a meeting often remind me of my first meeting. My heart sunk when I first heard the mention of God. I am so grateful that our wonderful program does not tell us how to define our Higher Power. The god I knew was one who never answered my imploring and directive prayers. Prayers weren’t about His will, but about MY will and my directions were often not followed. My sponsor taught me that the 11th Step instructs us how to pray. Once I began to practice this type of prayer and focus on the word “care” in Step 3, I found a God I could trust. I began to open my eyes and be grateful for God’s gifts in my life and to listen for God’s still small voice. I learned that when I hit a brick wall on life’s path, I could turn right or left instead of continuing to bloody my forehead.
The “We” of our First Step is implied at the beginning of each of the steps. We may think of Step Three as the group, “we” collectively turn our will and our lives over. I entered Al-Anon because of a relationship with a man I was deeply in love with, but whose drinking bothered me. A member suggested that I could consider that the Third Step might also include my boyfriend – that I could turn his and my will and life over. I was also given the image from an old insurance commercial of putting my loved one(s) and myself in “good hands”.
The path of my life is not what I had planned, but is much richer and absolutely bigger and more wonderful than I could have imagined. I limit myself and the world, but God doesn’t.
When I first tried practicing step three, to turn my will and my life over to God as I understand him; I thought that it was a decision that I would make once for the rest of my life. Now I understand that I make this decision over and over again with each new day. I am not perfect and my nature, maybe human nature, is to try to do things my own way. It requires a leap of faith each day to allow God to direct my will and my life. I love that he never tires of hearing me ask for his help. The fact that I ask each day is not a weakness, but an act of faith. I do what I can to take care of myself and to solve my problems with his direction, but what I can’t do I leave in his capable hands. I also leave the problems of others where they belong, with them and their higher power. Unless, I can do something within reason to help. This frees me from unneccesary worry and grief.
thanks for all the wondwerful comments…..Thank God i have God to turn my day over to…He works wonders for me on a daily base……
All Step Three asks me to do is make a decision. While it’s true that without making a decision to turn my wants and my needs over to the CARE of something bigger than me, my life will surely stay unmanageable, no one forces me to do this. I have to be willing to reach out and ask for help.
I believe the first three steps are three parts of one big idea. The idea being that first, I can’t control anyone or anything else, and when I try to stay in control, my life becomes unmanageable. Second that no human power, mine or anyone else’s, can relieve my need to stay in control. And third, that a Higher Power could, but I would have to ask for His help.
Those three ideas were foreign to me when I got to Al-Anon, but I knew that what I was doing wasn’t working. By choosing to make this Step Three decision, my Higher Power gave me a loving sponsor who intuitively knew what I needed and the willingness to follow her direction.
Without those three steps my life today would be just as unmanageable as it was when I walked through the doors of my first meeting 26 years ago. Those three steps gave me the courage to change me, and through my changes, others have also changed. But their change is only an added benefit, given to them through their Higher Power.
Making the decision to turn our will and lives over to a higher power was a phrase I read each week, but until I acted upon these words did I begin to feel more at peace with myself. Each morning I make time to take my moment to allow my thoughts to be heard by my higher power. My prayers are that I am guided through all situations of my day and they result in His will. I wish to be at peace and find that I carry a sense of peace to those around me. My weekly meetings continue to fill me with happiness knowing that others are working towards this same sense of peacefulness and that there is a higher power that can provide this if I choose it. I am grateful.
I am fed up with this life. I have come here seeking help & came across step three. I have realized over & over again that I cannot do this alone but I fight it so hard. I believe in a power greater than myself. I pray. I cry. I was raised in an alcoholic family. Most of my siblings have lost thier lives young to alcohol. My losses are many & yet I still keep attracting alcoholics into my life. I so need to know why. I understand a lot about alcoholism but I keep allowing it into my life through others. I control & I preach. I am often right and unmerciful. I am always living someone elses life to make thiers better or maybe to be cruel and to give back the pain I have suffered from those I grew up with and loved deeply. Constantly distracting myself with “thier” problems. I think I may be missing the whole point here. I don’t know where I fit in. I know I need help with this.
Before coming to Al-Anon and Step Three – my enmeshment in the disease of the alcoholic did reflect my choices, my implicit cooperation in that relationship. We are tempted to blame the alcoholic out of our frustrations, our fears, our anger, and our lost dreams. However, our blaming continues our enmeshment in the disease. The freedom that eventually comes to us in Al-Anon is the freedom that comes in “putting the focus back on us” – ultimately the result of hitting our bottom or as we say “admitting that our lives are unmanageable” ; this humility frees us to “come to believe” and to ultimately “make a decision” — to consider a relationship with God. This is hard work; it took me two trips of taking my Dad to detox for me to even have a hint of putting the focus on me. I finally admitted, as I stood with him at the admissions desk, I was powerless over this disease – alcoholism.
Yes, to hand our lives over to someone elses control leaves us not capable of turning our life and will to God’s care – not capable of turning our life and will over to the care of Al-Anon, and all it offers us to confront our disease. I had turned my life and my will over to the alcoholic disease of parents and family. It wasn’t my love; it was my fear, my confusion, and ultimately the pain of a life enmeshed in the disease of my alcoholic family. My choices, my disease. Humbled, I was looking for a path out of the insanity of alcoholism that I lived with my whole life. I was ready to make a decision…. . Thank you God, Thank You!
It took me some time in Al-Anon to realize that turning my will and my life over really wasn’t a new idea. I had been turning my life over to others for more years than I could count by being so enmeshed in what they thought. Other people were telling me how to live my life and, many times, how to think and how to feel. I allowed the experiences with the problem drinkers in my life to eat away at my understanding of who I was and how I felt.
Turning my life over to a loving Higher Power eventually sounded like a better idea. But, it remained an idea for many meetings. Finally, when I had reached the end of my proverbial rope; when there seemed no reason to hope, I made a decision. And, as others have shared, I learned that that decision is one I will make regularly for the rest of my life.
The outcome of those decisions has been a sense of freedom and relief. I have found a source of comfort and strength on which to rely: a source that always has my best interests at heart. I don’t always like what my Higher Power puts before me, but I know today that it is always just what I need and will, in the long run, serve my continued growth and serenity.
The longer I am a member of Al-Anon, the more I appreciate the wisdom of the Twelve Steps. Today I pray to continue being a student of those Steps; to turn to my Higher Power for strength, courage and most of all, hope.
I struggled for some time with the concept of “making a decision” and “turn my will and my life over…” because I kept trying to envision decision making or surrendering. I ended up thinking too much. Then I got the answer from someone else’s experience, strength and hope. I read p. 157 of Courage to Change that said “turning over my will and my life is to become receptive to guidance.” “I don’t have to earn it or work for it. I need only be receptive to it.” When I become receptive, I’m reminded I have a Higher Power who’s always therefore me whatever my circumstances are and loves me any way. What a relief! Especially in today’s uncertain economic and political times along with high unemployment — problems I don’t have the answers for. So what a gift to have an alternative to the uncertainty of life I’ve been accustomed to for so many years. When I become receptive I am moved to do something else. What do I do? I read a piece of literature, make a program call, go to a meeting, do chores, go for a walk or go to a movie. How wonderfully simple!
It is such a relief to me to be able to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. It takes away my stress and anxiety to know that God is taking care of me and that everything happens for a reason. God has a plan for my life and there is no safer place to be than in His will. Sometimes it is scary, but I have faith that God will take care of me and can get me through anything. I also feel like with this step I am turning over my husband to the care of God. Realizing that I am powerless over my husband and alcohol, and that I dont have to worry all the time. No matter what happens with my husband, I know that God is watching out for me and my kids and that we dont have to go down the path of destruction my husband is on. I like what a previous poster said about the first three steps: “I cant; God can; I think I’ll let Him!”
I will let Him work in my life. I will let Him take care of me.
I am experiencing a crisis right now and I sort of thought when I started in Alanon how wonderful it was to let go and let God and I also feared that I would not be able to do this in a crisis. Well, its here. My son is facing jail time and I fear he will do something stupid, that he can’t handle it. I keep turning to God, to my Higher Power and ask him to take the burden off of me. To let me love my son and let his Higher Power take care of him. I can’t. I make myself crazy and physically ill. I don’t have the power to help him. God does. I keep getting reminders from my Higher Power that he is watching over me. I keep turning it all over to Him and feeling peaceful for a little bit and then the fear starts up again. I want to turn it all over to God. If I did that, I would not have this fear. But it creeps back in and I turn it over to God again. When I do, I am calm. I pray for a consistency in this. I pray to be able to turn it over to God and leave it there. I know I don’t need to keep wrestling it back and I am powerless to do anything anyway. It’s an inner battle between my fear and my faith and I need to be vigilant.
Step 3 is a step that can be very difficult for non believers of God & I’m greatful to always have
God as my higher power. I also believe there are many gifts in this step that have more meaning because the importance of this step is crucial . Having been in Al-Anon almost 12 years I feel that steps 3 & 11 go together well. Let Go & Let God is the slogan that ties into this step well & God’s love plays a big role in my life even while remaining teachable & turning my life & will over to him as it says in step 2. Being a partner of God is the best thing I’ve ever done & I’ll always let him love me no matter how much I resent alcohol. I’ll always have this step as a reminder of why 12 step programs are for me.