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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Step Work -> Step Work -> Step 3 - AA
Post Info TOPIC: Step 3 - AA
amanda2u2


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Step 3 - AA
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Step 3 - AA

from the AA '12 Steps and 12 Traditions' book:


Step 3 - "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."


"... In the first two Steps we engaged in reflection. We saw that we were powerless over alcohol, but we also perceived that faith of some kind, if only in AA itself, is possible to anyone. These conclusions did not require action; they required only acceptance...


"Like all the remaining Steps, Step 3 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. Therefore our problem now becomes just how and by what specific means shall we be able to let Him in? Step 3 represents our first attempt to do this. In fact, the effectiveness of the whole AA 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...


" 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. ..


" Every person who has joined AA and intends to stick has, without realizing it, made a beginning on Step 3... 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... Now if that is not turning one's will and life over to a newfound Providence, then what is? ...


" 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...


" 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... 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...


" Should his own image in the mirror be too awful to contemplate... s/he might first take a look at the results normal people are getting from self-sufficiency. Everywhere s/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...


"Therefore, we... 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. ..


" 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... 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... a Higher Power hasn't produced any baleful results...


" 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 AA's 12 Steps, and Step 3 opens the door...


"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."



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do your best and God does the rest, a Step at a time
sheilasdad


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Sometimes I think step 3 would have been easier when I was drinking. I wasn't a bad person, but I just didn't care. Now that I am sober for a while, I have a life and there are lots of decisions and pressure. When I drank there was basically no life to turn over. So I struggle with this at times. What is God's will? How do I know I am making the right decision? When practiced correctly step 3 gives me enormous peace of mind and a bit of that elusive concept called serenity. If I can meditate, do the right thing, and trust in God, things always work out. If I take over, accept all responsibility for decision making and outcomes, if I overanalyze and freak out, then things are more difficult. The beauty of it all is that when I look at the final outcome (determined by God, not me) everything is usually ok anyway.
Mike

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Blessed


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Step 3 A.A.
" Made a decision to turn our lives and our Wills over to the care of God (as we understand him)

In keeping with the traditions of doing the 3rd Step the way I was taught by my 5th Sponsor. It must be worked by reading the Big Book pgs 60 to the top of page 64. The reading of the 3rd Step prayer on page 63 of the Big Book should be done between us and our Sponsor before continuing onto the 4th Step.

I continued along reading my Big Book with the 12x12 also called the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Step 3 is ALL about having a willingness to turn our lives over to the care of GOD. Without God your doomed in my opinion.

I was so busted up with seizures, shakes, fear, financial insecurity when I came into A.A. that I know for me I had to change or I was going to Die. I was very skeptical of hearing about GOD or JESUS. My anger would want to shoot out of every pore of my body and scream out if there is a GOD, What happened to me? Why am I so MESSEd up, SICK, DESTROYED, INSANE inside and out. 28 years of living life on my terms not Gods terms, my will not his will. That will do it. From 13 years old until I was 38 years old. Only by Gods Grace did I get it.

Step 3 is where my transition into a higher relationship with God began. On page 39 of the 12x12 it says that A.A.'s should be convinced by now that we have more problems than just drinking alcohol.

I am BLESSED because I have the tools to use now because of A.A. Sponsors that knew what they were doing taught me what foot went in front of the other. A.A. taught me about a Loving God that took me by the hand and gently walked me through the 12- Steps. At the end of Step 3 can we close together.

God Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the differance. Amen





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Blessed


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Step 3
Turn our life and our will over to the care of GOD

After going to a metting tonight at 5:30p.m. the subject came up about "HONESTY." When I turn my life over to the care of GOD. I TRUST him! I am "HONEST" with him! Why? Because when I was a drinker, drugger, and people abuser, I was a Liar a Cheat and A Theif.

God knew this I didn't. I just thought that it was everyone else's fault. So I lived on the assumption that it was everyone elses fault for the way I was and the way I behaved was perfectley natural. That everyone else was a liar and messed up but I wasn't. That I was given a bad shake in life because my Dad drank or because I was violated, or because the day was raining instead of sunny. I made a Choice to sneak out at 13 years old knowing I was going to get loaded. Knowing my Dad was wipped out from booze himself and wouldn't know. mom being so tired that she couldn't handle it until later. In other words I made my bed and slept in it.

When you are so sick and so full of your own strength, manipulation, tactics, survival skills, that "Turning our Life over to the care of GOD" is one of the most frightening, but wonderfully freeing experiences in the world and you are like me at the end you'll want to take it. I DID!

Listening to a Sponsor, reading the Big Book, going to meetings, reading literature that tells us about alcoholism and branching out into a higher plain of Spirituality. It brought me to the next Step, Step 4 and to it's completion. From the voices in A.A. saying that I was O.K. and right where I should be. Even when I felt like I was coming apart like that onion my Sponsor talked about being peeled away a layer at a time. For me to see what GOd saw and get to the good stuff we had to peel off all the layers of garbage.

Take the leap of Faith! DO the 3rd Step say the 3rd Step Prayer. Hold onto your seat and and your going to take the ride of your life and float on a Pink Cloud keep doing the Steps. It is in The Promises.

Love to you

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