GeeQ

I am still finding myself in dark places. Quite often. Yesterday I was in my wood shop when the feeling of overwhelming dread came over me. I have trouble relating to my wife and my kids. I am having a hard time trying to find things to take my mind off drinking during down-time. I have discussed this with my sponsor and he says that I need to keep working on the third step. I acknowledge that there is a power greater than me out there, but I just can not bring myself to give myself wholeheartedly to God. I don't want to just "give myself up" when I am not 100% truthful about doing so. My sponsor is a very religious person and speaks of giving himself to God, and that I need to do the same. I fear that I will be on the third step forever, and told my first sponsor this. He laughed and said that he doubted that will be the case. Well, here I am stuck on step three with no end in sight. The fear, self-loathing and pity are getting stronger by the minute. Do I have to face a mental breakdown before I can give myself to my Higher Power? Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.

intention

Hi GeeQ

That's because you want to drink again. That's the "cunning, baffling, powerful" alcoholic mind trying to trick you into drinking. p58

It's doing really well. You have admitted you are powerless, you believe there is a power greater than you which can restore you to sanity so you could do Step 3 in an instant.

Instead, this "cunning, baffling, powerful" disease is keeping you at Step 2 and has been for 7 weeks. Now will-power is starting to wear off and your mind is going to dark places. .......picking up a drink is the next stage.

You only have two choices. It is either - or.

"To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face." P44

Two alternatives. One or the other.

There is NO third option. Right now you are looking for the third option but you have tried that a long time, haven't you and it never worked.

I hope you choose the second option, rather than the first.
take care.

soberinwpg

Time to do your step 4 I think. Keep moving.

Clutch B

For me, step 1 was my mental breakdown.

Someone laid out the first three steps in this simplified way:

1) I can't.
2) God can.
3) I'll let him.

All you're doing is deciding to do things God's way rather than your way. Take it one day at a time ... it's really not a big deal.

Move on!

GeeQ

Thanks all for your insights. ClutchB, your simplified version brings things more into perspective. I also had a good conversation with my sponsor and another guy who is pretty much my cosponsor. They gave me good ideas as well. Was hoping to discuss it a little more at a meeting tonight. I'm out of town and used the local meeting guide to find a meeting, only to find the meeting I went to does not exist anymore. Glad I have this place to gain insight

Sugah

I got all hung up on the wording of the 3rd step, specifically "God as we understood Him." I knew there was something bigger than me, some sort of organizing principle in the Universe, but I had no idea what It was -- and I thought I needed to know in order to take the 3rd step. But, I didn't. My concept of God has grown and evolved, and I still can't say I know Who or What God is, only that God Is. Good enough.

I also looked to others -- people with all sorts of individual conceptions of God, and I believed them when they told me that their Higher Power kept them sober, directed their lives. I drew hope from that, and honestly, that hope is what carried me through my 4th step, propped me up to take the 5th, brought me to the "entirely ready" part of the 6th step with eagerness and cultivated in me a sense of true humility in the 7th. I could keep going, but you get the idea.

That dread left me once I could breath, and I couldn't breath until I cleaned all the garbage out of my house. If you really don't want to take a drink, look around you and borrow some hope. I'm sure there are folks who have plenty to spare.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

barb dwyer

*My* problem with the 'God thing' the first time around in AA
( I want you to take note that I DID specify the FIRST time)

was because I still held on to a good bit of anger
that the Creator had not lived up to
what people had promised me.

I specify the first time
because I truly believe that
it was this long held resentment
against the conceptualized 'God' thing
that caused my eventual relapse.

By the time I came back...
I had a vastly different perspective.

I hope you don't have to repeat my own mistake.

GeeQ

Thanks Sugah. That makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks to you as well, Barb.

Mark75

I understand that feeling!!

My Higher Power, God, loves me. Unconditionally. He is the Father and I am His son (not Jesus, obviously, you know what I mean...). He will give me what I need. Just as I will do the same with my children, as much as any mortal man can. If I can spare my kids pain, I will try to do so, if I cannot, or should not, I will just love them, unconditionally and with all my heart, as they work through it.

In step three, I had to come to believe that He will care for me. Faith. It's one thing for me to believe in God, it was quite another for me to learn to lean on him, to let him hold me in His care and protection. My part of the deal is that I turn my life and will over to Him, so He can do that...

That's how I (try) to do it. Progress not perfection.

Mark

keithj

GeeQ,

I read your post again this morning and had a couple of thoughts that might be useful for taking the 3rd Step.

I came to AA as a staunch atheist who believed that faith in a higher power was a crutch for weak-minded people. So, looking at Steps 2 and 3, not to mention the whole idea of spiritual help, was pretty daunting for me. But I saw that it really worked for others, and I was hopeless. What were my other options? Keep living like I was? It came down to a choice. I can either recover or I can't. God either is or he isn't. What was my choice to be?

Although I probably didn't realize it at the time, I sort of took those Steps from a negative perspective. I knew all about my life run on self will. I had full knowledge of my life without a higher power for direction. That life was no longer livable by me. I didn't want to turn my will and life over, but I had no option. That, and success I saw in others, was that only thing that made me willing.

I said that 3rd Step prayer on my knees with a sponsor and felt nothing but silly. I'm praying to something I had no faith in. But, I was willing to have faith in it, because there was no other choice. I was told that the rest of that prayer, Steps 4-7, would help me start to develop that faith. And that's exactly what those Steps did.

My rambling point is that Step 3 can be taken from a negative stance. How's my alcoholic life going on self will? How'd things work out when I tried to apply that self will even harder and more furiously? Did it end up like it describes for the actor who exerts his will even more? Am I convinced that life run on self can hardly be a success? If so, I can take Step 3.

jimhere

You sound like me at about six months away from a drink. I had fell into the trap of believing that abstinence and meetings treat alcoholism and was coming apart at the seams. Have you ever read page 52 in the chapter "We Agnostics?" There is a paragraph on that page that describes me without a drink. I won't go into it, but you should read it.

Drinking convinced me that I can't drink. Trying to live without a drink convinced me that I can't live without a drink. At six months I was ready to blow my head off, because drinking was not an option. I know what you are talking about-the wanting to drink but not wanting to drink, the feeling of impending doom, trouble relating to people, depression, feeling useless and unsatisfied. Whenever I'd verbalize this stuff in meetings, the only answers I got were cliches like "You are right where you are supposed to be." "Turn it over," "Acceptance, read page 449." Or the one I came to really dislike "This too shall pass." If one more well-meaning idiot would have said that to me I would have grabbed them by the throat because "It" wasn't passing.

It was at this point that I gave up and asked for help. I had met some men who seemed to have a real answer beyond cliches and schedule books with phone numbers. One of them became my sponsor. You know, the day after I asked for help, I saw a reader board at a church. It said "When you are at your wit's end, that is where you'll find God."

My sponsor helped me with the God stuff. I had heard people in meetings say "Just turn it over," and wondered how you do that. He asked me "Can you count four through nine?" That's how you turn it over. I too had reservations about turning it completely over. I said you are asking me to turn my will and life over nothing and he said "Why not, nothing can run it better than you have been." But the kicker was this: he said "Turn as much of yourself as you understand over to as much of God as you understand. God will be revealed to you gently as you reveal yourself to you. God will be revealed to you as you reveal yourself to you." And that has been my experience. I haven't been asked to do anything on this path that will harm me, although some of it has been uncomfortable.

It does sound like you are having some reservations though. Definitely look at them and consider them, because you won't be able to get past Step Three unless you do. But maybe it isn't a Third Step reservation at all. Could it be that you are having First Step reservations?
Jim

sugErspun

I agree with the above post - this looks more like 1st step reservations than 3rd step.

I was taken through the steps a lot "slower" than I thought I should have at the time, the guy taking me through was watching me closely. We spoke about it and he was waiting to see that I had a first step experience - we use "admission" as if it means telling someone "Yes, I am powerless over alcohol and my life stinks". It is so much more.

My suggestion would be to read Bill's story and ask yourself "Is this me?" "Can I relate to how Bill felt at the time before his last drink?"

A short excerpt
"They did not need to tell me. I knew, and almost welcomed the idea. It was a devastating blow to my pride. I, who had thought so well of myself and my abilities, of my capacity to surmont obstacles, was cornered at last. Now I was to plunge into the dark, joining that endless procession of sots who had gone on before. I thought of my poor wife. There had been much happiness afer all. What would I not give to make amends. But that was over now.
No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master."

First Ed Alcoholics Anonymous pp 7-8.

If you read on, you will notice he stayed sober for a bit after the description of his experience (above). Then he got drunk again! In the hospital he offered himself to some God that he didn't have a belief in - it was his last resort. He gave up.

I was sober ~ 45 days when I took the 3rd step, which was really nothing more than getting on my knees with the guy who took me through the steps and reciting the prayer from the book. I didn't have any idea what it would lead to, but I was sick of hurting and I really was willing to do whatever I was told to do.

Step 1 tells me that if I have alcoholism, pending a miracle ~ I am going to drink again and I won't be able to stop. My experience confirms this...I was miserable through steps 1 and 2, confused but willing to move my feet. I said the 3rd step prayer and started making a list later that night and I have honestly never reverted back to the hopelessness I had before I said the prayer. Things started happening at that point.

Alcoholic torture (sober and drunk) vs a personal experience with a God I don't believe in or have a very good concept of. Was I willing to take a chance? Why not? These people I know in AA knew EXACTLY how I drank and felt - and they were happy today.

GeeQ - Are you convinced that you are going to drink again? Or, is there some lurking notion that if you "just do this" or "avoid that" you can manage? Will hitting the lottery, or having all these problems that appear to come from outside yourself removed - make life OK? Are you keeping an ace in the hole? (ie - If "this" happens, I will get drunk).

Get that 1st step down - 2 and 3 will flow right out.

Music

Please, someone show me in the third step where it says anything about giving oneself to God. I believe the wording is "turn my will and my life over to the CARE of God, as I understand Him."

I had the same problem until I realized that walking with God, making decisions based on what I believe God would want me to do....or not, made all the difference in my ability to accept the premise of the third step. As it turns out, I needed to do it this way to get me where I'm at now. Keep your eye on the bottom line here. Do you want to drink again or not?

Ninsuna

I was stuck here, too. Someone in my book study pointed out that it was "made the decision to..." He asked me if three frogs are sitting by a pond and one decides to jump in how many are left? Three.

You are making the decision to turn your life over to you higher power. The actual turning over is something you will do again and again for the rest of your days. This step for me is about committing to cultivating that willingness on a daily basis.

I agreee with those that said it may be time to move on to your fourth step, you don't need perfect faith to do that, just a start.

GeeQ

I thank you all who posted to this thread. It helped me a lot over the last day, and many of your words helped me get to where I am tonight. I don't want to drink, I am not convincing myself that drinking again would make me better. I know where that would get me. I was struggling with step three, expecting that I would have to give myself up in some supernatural epiphony. You all helped me see step three as it really is. Your words and the story that follows have brought me full turn. Excuse the length of my story, but I need to tell it.

After hanging on here in the afternoon yesterday, I went to go to a local meeting (I am traveling for work). I got there and the building was empty, the lights were off, nobody was home. I was not doing so good at this point. I had no other options for a meeting, so I went back to the hotel to read my big book and find a meeting for tonight.

I found a meeting about 20 minutes from here in a small town, at the end of a quiet street and setted in to one of the many recliners in a room full of couches and chairs. The subject of the day revolved around step three...hmmmm. After hearing a few people talk, I brought up what I discussed here yesterday and with my sponsor. One woman looked at me, told me her story, and then asked me, "If you don't really believe there is a higher power out there, how do you suspect you've gotten this far in life?". Her comment hit me right between the eyes and the lightbulb went off. You see, had the meeting I went to last night not been closed down, I might not have gone to one tonight. Something wanted me to be sitting in that recliner, amongst a group of strangers, now friends, discussing this very idea. A woman named Claudia drove the point home with her simple comment. I now have it, hook line and sinker.

My heart is now as full as it has ever been. I have a tear of joy in my eye now because I GET it. I was making a mountain out of a molehill. I have everyone here as well as those in that little meeting at the end of a quiet road to thank for that.

To you all, I am grateful. Thank you. Geeq

lizw

Great little story. I love this kind of stuff. I had this AA friend who always use to say I don't need to beleive in god/a hp because he/she believes in me. It's easy to get hung up on the god/hp thing but so meaningless.

I've always liked how the BB says that deep down in every person is an spiritual idea/belief/connection - that it is part of our make up. Sort of like part of our DNA.

intention

There are many examples in my life when God has "closed down meetings" and I have ended up doing something different than I had planned.......which just happens to be exactly what I needed.

When you are ready to listen to God, you will hear him.

Well done on getting it!

Ago

Jimhere nailed it

You can do step 3, it's easy, it's called 4-9, that is the decision you have made, those show you how to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him

It's like, "made a decision to go swimming" All of the agonizing thoughts about what water is, how I don't believe in water, how I am afraid of water blah blah blah

You could die of dehydration rationalizing making a decision to go swimming

or you could close your eyes, hold your nose and jump in, you learn how to swim by swimming, not reading about it and thinking about it.

All of the instructions are printed clearly in the book, it starts at C God could and would if he were sought, and goes to "Next", where it talks about our decision being a crucial and vital step but will have little or NO lasting effect unless followed AT ONCE by a searching and fearless moral inventory.

Jimhere nailed it