I proved the value of this Step to myself recently when my husband and I had a strong disagreement. He threatened to leave and rather than react, I let him stew on that thought for a couple of weeks, letting him spend the time alone which he chose. I did nothing to influence his actions, but rather, left it in my Higher Power’s hands. After that amount of time, he started seeing how much we do mean to each other and he changed his mind. As I always do when he helps me, I thanked God for his loving guidance.

After many years in Al-Anon practicing this step, my life is much more serene now. When I turn my will over to my Higher Power, I don’t turn over my responsibility for my actions and behavior, or sit around waiting for my HP to do all the work and solve all the problems; I just acknowledge the parts of my life I do have power over and the parts I don’t, and try to live from that.

The biggest lesson Step Three has taught me is that I don’t need my Higher Power to protect me from what will happen—I’ve found I can deal with that pretty well; I need my Higher Power to protect me from what I think SHOULD happen. That’s my problem: my illusion of control.

I am grateful that Al-Anon is a spiritual program, because at this stage of my life, I am completely non-religious. My Higher Power knows that’s what I need to do right now. He also knows that, when I lose my serenity, it’s because there are still some things I’m reluctant to turn over; he can’t take what I won’t give him.

After doing the 3rd step several times, & seeing the good results – like not having to worry about the problem, & experiencing some relief & peace, as a result of this third step, I made myself a God-box. I wrote down the thing that was really hard to turn over, & put it in the box. About a year Later, I looked at some of my written requests, & was very encouraged by seeing how wonderfully God had taken care of it. Of course, I became more willing to turn over things quickly, instead of “stewing” over them, or pestering my friends about my problems.

I don’t believe in god in the usual way, but I still can take Step Three. I have a god of my understanding: I don’t understand much more than “I am not god.” This means I don’t know what is best for you and often I don’t know what is best for me. When I remember this my life is smoother.

I took Step Three by deciding to throw my lot in with Al-Anon and do everything that the literature suggested. Members of my home group said that I only needed a tiny bit of willingness and faith to do this, and that it would work whether I believed it would or not, as long as I ‘did the deal’ and took the actions described in the Steps. (I got a sponsor and worked the Steps and they were right.)

I demonstrated that I took Step Three by moving on to Step Four and writing inventory.

This week some fears have surfaced. When this happens I read up on Step Three. I pray for guidance. I remind myself that I have decided to throw my lot in with a loving spiritual power and that as long as I am willing to take care of myself and be of service, I will be okay. I might not be comfortable, I might not like everything that happens, but I will be able to breathe and stay in the present moment.

The best aspect of alanon for me, is how less frequent my internal tornado shows up. I am a very grateful memeber of alanon.

Thanks for being here!

When I came to Al-Anon I simply did not have the ability to make good choices for myself. That resulted in me turning my will and my life over to others—my parents, my wife, my boss, my friends. I learned the hard way these people did not always have my best interests in their hearts. Adversity came to my life as a result.

Al-Anon taught me to put the focus on myself. When I did, I learned I had to take responsibility for my own well being, and not place myself in dependence of others. I’m responsible for my choices and actions.

Today, when I am in relationships with others my goal is to be interdependent. That way I have the ability to respond to my circumstances in ways that serve my interests, and sometimes others’ interests will also be served.

Recovery has taught me that people are not always dependable; therefore, choosing to place myself in their dependence is not always in my best interest. Since coming to Al-Anon I’ve experienced God doing for me what I have not been able to do for myself. That taught me that God is trustworthy. That trust enables me to place myself in His dependence, and turn my will and my life over to Him.

The phrase “as we understood Him” gave me courage to trust what I could not see. I realized I did not undestand much about a Higher Power, but I had been able to see that people in my home group were changing their lives. They were beginning to smile, to be happy, and to focus on themselves and not the alcoholic. The Higher Power did present miracles in front of my eyes that I could not miss. Since I had always said, “It would have to take a miracle,” what choice did I have? The miracles were occurring. Slowly, cautiously, I became willing to turn my will and my life over, despite my limited knowledge or understanding of what might occur. After all, I finally realized that a Power greater than I might do a better job of managing my life than I had.

Eventually, I gave up trying to control and surrendered my lack of understanding. Instead, I sought a relationship with the God of my not understanding, whom I call “you.” I prayed by talking to “you.” When I meditated on the Twelve Steps, I inserted “you” and changed the words to present tense: 2. I come to believe that you are a power great than myself who can restore me to sanity. 3. I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to your care. 5. I admit to you, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. 6. I become entirely ready to have you remove all these defects of character. 7. I humbly ask you to remove my shortcomings. 11. I seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with you, praying only for knowledge of your will for me and power to carry that out.

As I allowed my relationship with “you” to develop and change, to be fuzzy and unfinished, I relaxed into an understanding of my Higher Power that carries me through my days.

I began starting my day on my knees asking for God to show me how to surrender my will and life. It was shortly after this that I was told that my 8 year old daughter required very serious surgery and the mortality rate was high with this surgery. I began really asking for God’s help in this decision. I made the decision and the surgery was scheduled for 4 weeks later. During this time I had complete peace about my decision and felt the presence of my higher power. The morning of the surgery, my husband and I sat in her hospital room when she was taken to the operating room. The doctor said it would be at least 4 hours. 45 minutes later she was back in her room and the doctor said “as soon as she was under the anesthisia it was apparent she didn’t need the major surgery just some tendon releases in her legs.” I was very grateful for the news and also for the four weeks of peace I had experienced because I was able to trust in a Higher Power.

I remember when I first came to Alanon, I knew I had a problem that was out of control. My alcoholic was out of control and therefore I was as well. I would repeat over and over again “Let go, and Let God”. I would say that over and over again and I would say this while I was driving. I would get so consumed in repeating those lines that I was white knuckled and clenching the steering wheel. I wasn’t yet handing over my will. I thought I could still control what happened. I thought I still had the ability to make the decision that I would help cure my alcoholic. I can’t do that and it was unrealistic of me to believe I could. I didn’t have control, my will only controlled me and it wasn’t within my life to gift an alcoholic with sobriety as if he even wanted that gift.

I don’t need to cure my husband anymore. I’ve relaxed my brain in my praying. I don’t put too much emphasis on finding the solutions anymore. I know that simply by turning it over to my higher power, the answers will come. Of course, they will never come as fast as I would like them, but they will come. I control only the things I can control… myself. I can buckle down and do work. Cleaning, professional work, physical work, and in general mind numbing check the box work that allows me to feel accomplishments while not imposing my check boxes on my high power. Those check boxes are only for me to check. To me this is an important part of step 3 for me. Putting my control in check. I had to take “cure my husband of alcoholism” off my to do list and simply put the house work back on. Life is way more satisfying now. And that was a big part of accepting the idea of turning my entire life and will over to God.

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.

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!

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.

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.