I've been going over Step 3 again casue it has kinda been bothering me. Handing over my will that is. As I was doing some reading I came across the following questions and I answered them.
1) That we are addicts and could not manage our own lives. Is this you?
Yes definitely. When I was in action I was a mess. There Was No Doubt: my life was spiralling out of control and completely unmanageable.
2) That no human power could have relieved our addiction. Are you beyond human aid?
Actually I believed that if I worked hard and put in effort that could help. My wellness was in my own hands. When I was first in recovery I think I placed my husband in the Title Role of Higher Power and relied on him when I couldn't rely on myself. After I found my faith I acted like God would automatically "fix" everything in my life and didn't work my recovery. Then I relapsed. I thought that I was going well in recovery and God had relieved me of my addiction, but actually I was being complacent and that eventually caught up with me.
3) That God could and would if He were sought. Are you willing to believe?
Still struggling with this one. I'm stuck here. I still feel like my recovery is dependant on the work I do and God will only restore me if I show a suitable amount of effort. He is able to restore others to their sanity, but not me. Especially if I don't work it. Restoration is available to others if they are willing but only to me if I succeed.
I beleive that I have the willingness to hand over my will to my HP but I still have trouble understanding what this actually means. I am willing but don't understand the practicality of how this is done.
How have you guys processed this Step?
Cheers Tam
"It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity"
Albert Einstein.
At first, I resisted the idea that God would magically take my problems away. The pain of the unfolding disaster of my life drove me to accept this step because I was so desperate. I have a lot of feels about this that are hard to put into words. I'm still not sure if there is actually a god out there. What is different is I've become willing to seek him/her and allow he /she to take the driver's seat in my life. Worst case scenario: no one is listening when I pray and I'm really in charge of myself. Best case scenario: I'm living according to the will of my HP and developing a relationship with him/her. Either way, I feel better when I let go and surrender my life to my HP. I have more serenity when I stop trying to be the driving force in my own life.
I guess practically, this means staying open to the possible ways God can talk to you. Be open to the people and circumstances that come your way. We cannot drive blindly through our lives following paths of our own design. We have already done this and it has ended in ruin.
I don't think it's awful if you can't turn your whole will over at once. I believe that it takes practice. We have been our god for so long. We need to learn another way. Such a change (at least for me) does not happen overnight.
Thank you for starting this thread. I'm really interested to see what others have to offer.
Hi MamaTam! I found these two examples for working step 3 to be helpful (substituting addict for alcoholic).
http://www.stepsbybigbook.net/show_docs.php?Type_ID=3
http://www.barefootsworld.net/aaworkstep3.html
Hugs, Lisa Video game free since 4/17/2014
1. This was the easy part. Like you, there was no argument from me here. Life was on top of me like a ton of bricks, and I was utterly convinced I could not begin to dig my way out.
2. I was past hope of there being any help, any aid available from anyone anywhere. I had tried everything I knew and sought help from every corner I could think of to no avail - for everything except gaming, that is. I was unbelievably slow to see gaming as a problem.
3. Thankfully, some concept of a benevolent Power being available to help me was instilled in me as a child. This was enough to begin, but I soon woke up to my magical thinking that any power outside of me would immediately and miraculously transform me and/or my circumstance without me lifting a finger. My new reality is I've found that as long as I am *willing* to surrender my willfulness daily, as long as I'm *willing* to begin to accept life on life's terms and to behave in awe and gratitude for *what is* rather than my prior approach of believing somehow I "should" have the ability to "make" life fit my distorted vision of what life "should" be, and as I *take the actions that are mine to take* one day at a time, one day at a time, I am in step with life and experience a good measure of sanity.
Acceptance. When I am disturbed, it is because a person, place, thing, or situation is unacceptable to me. I find no serenity until I accept my life as being exactly the way it is meant to be. Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Acknowledge the problem, but live the solution!
I'm finding that if I take actions (early and often is best) to surrender my will to my HP each day, many things in sobriety take care of themselves. I've become pretty thoroughly convinced at this point that any day I can go without gaming is a bona-fide miracle (I'm powerless over it myself, after all), and I find it interesting that my taking actions to not be in charge of my life today seems to provide all the power I need.
I do take Jesus as my HP, so the way I think about this might not work for you, but I see it this way...when I surrender my will and my life over to God's care, He responds by giving me what I need to stay sober, NOT because He owes me anything, but because I can't do the things that He wants me to do if I'm busy gaming. Anyway...that's how I'm finding this to be for me. It took me something like 9 months and a lot of relapses to figure out how important surrender is to me, and I was reminded of that importance just a few weeks ago. Without surrender, I'm in charge, and if I'm in charge, then I'm living in opposition to the second half of Step 1...and last time I checked, that was synonymous with saying that I'm in a BAD place... :)
When you're going through hell...keep going. --Winston Churchill There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still --Corrie ten Boom
I first read step 3 when I was sitting on the toilet. My first thought was: that's not going to happen! Immediately I started grieving my recovery.
Thankfully my sponsor pointed out the wording of the step, which involved turning my will over to the CARE of a higher power. Somehow, that made it easier to contemplate. When I'm physically ill, I turn my will over to the care of doctors and nurses. When I'm ignorant, I turn my will over to the care of teachers. So rather than feeling completely threatening and unthinkable, the prospect of turning over my will started to feel consistent with decisions I already make in my daily life, which benefit me.
And shortly thereafter, it occurred to me that by coming to OLGA, learning about people's stories, and starting to follow their example, I had already turned over my will to the care of the fellowship and the 12-step program. By making the spiritual principles of the program my HP, I was able to see that I'd already completed step 3 well enough to move forward with the steps.
Regarding religion, I'm not sure what I believe. I more or less identify as Buddhist. For me, faith is not about making a statement of belief so much as an ongoing experiment, wherein I sometimes try to follow Buddhist teachings, and sometimes I don't, and try to learn from experience. Theological certainty about the nature of divinity is fortunately not necessary for my recovery, and in fact the desire to nail it down definitively would only impede or block my recovery.