Step 03

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

1. Primary principle(s): willingness, courage, trust
2. Other principles: faith, surrender, commitment, patience, grace, prayer, understanding

Readings:

• Big Book pp. 60-63, Appendix II
• Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions pp. 34-41
• “We Are Not a Bunch of Religious Fanatics!”, April 1972 AA Grapevine
• “Whose Marriage Is It Anyway?”, October 2006 AA Grapevine
• “A Life Without Problems”, May 2007 AA Grapevine

When I saw the 2nd and 3rd steps on the wall at my first meeting, I thought I was seriously screwed.  I knew that I had “faked” a spiritual experience and a religious life as best I could and it had failed miserably in terms of helping me to grow up or stop drinking.  Fortunately, where I sobered up, we were a set of folks who had our priorities set on fellowship rather than spiritual growth so my “struggles” with a 3rd step came much later.

This set of us, ranging in numbers from 10-15, had several things in common:

1. For various reasons, we did not want to go home
2. We were desperately poor (unsure how to pay rent or mortgage, get groceries and gas, etc.)
3. Most of us were fairly new in sobriety - most with less than a year - but were at least generally committed to staying sober one day at a time

We would invent social opportunities several times a week where we could hang together between meetings:  potluck dinners, concerts in the park, dancing at no-cover night clubs, etc.  I seemed to be less interested in going home than some of the others, so often I would be the last to leave for home.

At one of these potluck dinners, the general subject of the evening was AA’s 3rd step.  It provided endless angles for discussion and opinions.  We talked about it’s purpose in our 12 steps. We discussed it from the perspectives of western religions, eastern religions, native religions (of course none of us had any direct experience with non-western religions but we conjured up opinions nonetheless).  We discussed psychological perspectives.  We discussed moral perspectives.  We discussed perspectives of taking responsibility vs. surrender.  We spent a whole, long, lovely (it really was) evening talking about the 3rd step.

As I mentioned before, I was often the last to leave and, as I was walking to my car well after midnight with our hostess, Lynne, we were reflecting what a lovely evening it had been.  How wonderful our AA program is.  The simplicity and perfection of the 3rd step was marvelous to us indeed.

I still to this day remember the sudden change that came over Lynne’s face as we stood at my car and she said what would have been the last thing that I could have ever expected her to say.  She said: “…why don’t we just take the 3rd step?”  I was not only surprised but a little embarrassed for her, but didn’t want to leave her alone (or, at least not leave) with that thought so, in my moment of weakness, I said “OK”.

We went back into her place.  We were careful to draw all the curtains and lock all the doors (I had been drunk and disorderly all over Denver and many other cities for years but didn’t want anyone to catch me praying with someone in their home at 2am…).  We knelt at a table near her stairway in her townhouse and read (of course I didn’t know the 3rd step prayer in our big book) the prayer together.

Awkwardly, I quickly said goodbye again and went home.  I remember thinking on the way home how there were no lightning bolts.  I wondered if this was just another spiritual fraud I was doing - if I even had the sincerity and honesty required to do the steps of this program.

Looking back almost 25 years later, I can say honestly that nothing changed that night and everything changed that night.  I did not have a “white light” experience that I often heard others remark about.  But, I can clearly see in retrospect that what began that night was an educational process roughly explained in Appendix II of our Big Book.

Some years later, John, a friend of mine was going through the 12 steps with a new sponsor and they came to the 3rd step.  They arranged to get together to “do the 3rd step” at a busy restaurant.  My friend spent the whole week a little concerned because he’s really not comfortable with prayer in a public place but, he finally resolved that he’d decided to trust this sponsor with this part of the process and just show up and deal with it.

He was seated at the table when his sponsor showed up.  Before he even sat down, his sponsor said, “…John, are you ready to do whatever it takes to stay sober and work the program of AA?”  Without a moment’s hesitation, my friend said “Yes!!!”.

The sponsor then said, “Good!  Then we’re ready to get started on step 4.”

The decision had been made.

I like that…