"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God as we understood Him
Practicing Step Three is like the
opening of a door which to all appearances is still closed and locked. All we
need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key,
and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens
almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a pathway beside which
is an inscription. It reads: "This is the way to a faith that works."
In the first two Steps we were engaged in reflection. We saw that we were
powerless over alcohol, but we also perceived that faith of some kind, if only
in A.A. itself, is possible to anyone. These conclusions did not require
action; they required only acceptance.
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. Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith
alone can avail nothing. We can have faith, yet keep God out of our lives.
Therefore our problem now becomes just how and by what specific means shall we
be able to let Him in? Step Three represents our first attempt to do this. In
fact, the effectiveness of the whole A.A. program will rest upon how well and
earnestly we have tried to come to "a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
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 his own life
over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? Fortunately, we who have
tried it, and with equal misgivings, can testify that anyone, anyone at all,
can begin to do it. We can further add that a beginning, even the smallest, is
all that is needed. Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and
have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some
more. Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will
always respond the moment we again pick up the key of
willingness.
Maybe this all sounds mysterious and
remote, something like Einstein's theory of relativity or a proposition in
nuclear physics. It isn't at all. Let's look at how practical it actually is.
Every man and woman who has joined A.A. and intends to stick has, without
realizing it, made a beginning on Step Three. Isn't it true that in all matters
touching upon alcohol, each of them has decided to turn his or her life over to
the care, protection, and guidance of Alcoholics Anonymous? 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 A.A. Any willing newcomer feels
sure A.A. is the only safe harbor for the foundering vessel he has become. Now
if this is not turning one's will and life over to a newfound Providence, then
what is it?
But suppose that instinct still
cries out, as it certainly will, "Yes, respecting alcohol, I guess I have
to be dependent upon A.A., but in all other matters I must still maintain my
independence. Nothing is going to turn me into a nonentity. If I keep on
turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else,
what will become of me? I'll look like the hole in the doughnut." This, of
course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster
egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development. The trouble is that this kind
of thinking takes no real account of the facts. And the facts seem to be these:
The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent
we actually are. Therefore dependence, as A.A. practices it, is really a means
of gaining true independence of the spirit.
Let's examine for a moment this idea
of dependence at the level of everyday living. In this area it is startling to
discover how dependent we really are, and how unconscious of that dependence.
Every modern house has electric wiring carrying power and light to its
interior. We are delighted with this dependence; our main hope is that nothing
will ever cut off the supply of current. By so accepting our dependence upon
this marvel of science, we find ourselves more independent personally. Not only
are we more independent, we are even more comfortable and secure. Power flows
just where it is needed. Silently and surely, electricity, that strange energy
so few people understand, meets our simplest daily needs, and our most
desperate ones, too. Ask the polio sufferer confined to an iron lung who
depends with complete trust upon a motor to keep the breath of life in him.
But the moment our mental or
emotional independence is in question, how differently we behave. How
persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall
think and just how we shall act. Oh yes, we'll weigh the pros and cons of every
problem. We'll listen politely to those who would advise us, but all the
decisions are to be ours alone. Nobody is going to meddle with our personal
independence in such matters. Besides, we think, there is no one we can surely
trust. We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly
control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world we live in. 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? One good
look in the mirror ought to be answer enough for any alcoholic.
Should his own image in the mirror
be too awful to contemplate (and it usually is), he might first take a look at
the results normal people are getting from self-sufficiency. Everywhere he sees
people filled with anger and fear, society breaking up into warring fragments.
Each fragment says to the others, "We are right and you are wrong."
Every such pressure group, if it is strong enough, self-righteously imposes its
will upon the rest. And everywhere the same thing is being done on an
individual basis. The sum of all this mighty effort is less peace and less
brotherhood than before. The philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off.
Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is
ruin.
Therefore, we who are alcoholics can
consider ourselves fortunate indeed. Each of us has had his own near-fatal
encounter with the juggernaut of self-will, and has suffered enough under its
weight to be willing to look for something better. So it is by circumstance
rather than by any virtue that we have been driven to A.A., have admitted
defeat, have acquired the rudiments of faith, and now want to make a decision
to turn our will and our lives over to a Higher Power.
We realize that the word
"dependence" is as distasteful to many psychiatrists and
psychologists as it is to alcoholics. Like our professional friends, we, too,
are aware that there are wrong forms of dependence. We have experienced many of
them. No adult man or woman, for example, should be in too much emotional
dependence upon a parent. They should have been weaned long before, and if they
have not been, they should wake up to the fact. This very form of faulty
dependence has caused many a rebellious alcoholic to conclude that dependence
of any sort must be intolerably damaging. But dependence upon an A.A. group or
upon a Higher Power hasn't produced any baleful results.
When World War II broke out, this
spiritual principle had its first major test. A.A.'s entered the services and
were scattered all over the world. Would they be able to take discipline, stand
up under fire, and endure the monotony and misery of war? Would the kind of
dependence they had learned in A.A. carry them through? Well, it did. They had
even fewer alcoholic lapses or emotional
binges
than A.A.'s safe at home did. They were just as capable of endurance and valor
as any other soldiers. Whether in Alaska or on the Salerno beachhead, their dependence
upon a Higher Power worked. And far from being a weakness, this dependence was
their chief source of strength.
So how, exactly, can the willing
person continue to turn his will and his life over to the Higher Power? He made
a beginning, we have seen, when he commenced to rely upon A.A. for the solution
of his alcohol problem. By now, though, the chances are that he has become
convinced that he has more problems than alcohol, and that some of these refuse
to be solved by all the sheer personal determination and courage he can muster.
They simply will not budge; they make him desperately unhappy and threaten his
newfound sobriety. Our friend is still victimized by remorse and guilt when he
thinks of yesterday. Bitterness still overpowers him when he broods upon those
he still envies or hates. His financial insecurity worries him sick, and panic
takes over when he thinks of
all
the bridges to safety that alcohol burned behind him. And how shall he ever
straighten out that awful jam that cost him the affection of his family and
separated him from them? His lone courage and unaided will cannot do it. Surely
he must now depend upon Somebody or Something else.
At first that "somebody"
is likely to be his closest A.A. friend. He relies upon the assurance that his
many troubles, now made more acute because he cannot use alcohol to kill the
pain, can be solved, too. Of course the sponsor points out that our friend's
life is still unmanageable even though he is sober, that after all, only a bare
start on A.A.'s program has been made. More sobriety brought about by the
admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few meetings is very good
indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a
contented, useful life. That is just where the
remaining
Steps of the A.A. program come in. Nothing short of continuous action upon
these as a way of life can bring the much-desired result.
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. This statement may surprise newcomers
who have experienced nothing but constant deflation and a growing conviction
that human will is of no value whatever. They have become persuaded, and
rightly so, that many problems besides alcohol will not yield to a headlong
assault powered by the individual alone. But now it appears that there are
certain things which only the individual can do. A11 by himself, and in the
light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of willingness.
When he acquires willingness, he is the only one who can make the decision to
exert himself. Trying to do this is an act of his own will. All of the Twelve
Steps require sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and
so, we trust, to God's will.
It is when we try to make our will
conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly. To all of us, this was a
most wonderful revelation. Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.
We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it
into agreement with God's intention for us. To make this increasingly possible
is the purpose of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, and Step Three opens the door.
Once we have come into agreement
with these ideas, it is really easy to begin the practice of Step Three. 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."