I am Irish and German (red-headed and hard-headed). I was a first-born child, trained to seek independence and winning. I was born on the fourth of July–a real firecracker! All of that makes for a self-sufficient, self-willed… and self-absorbed past that I am working diligently to recognize. It’s not easy to stop the trajectory of self-willed living. Let me add that I would have self-righteously denied living according to my own will and would have quoted scripture to arrest any argument. Even though I was living in the completely opposite realm, I would have agreed with the following quote.

It is when we try to make our will conform to God’s that we begin to use it rightly. ~ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 2012, p 40

I would have agreed. I would have also been clueless. I don’t understand the intricate workings of denial, but I’m at the same time, well-acquainted with it. I denied that I was self-centered, controlling, that I needed help and was ignorant of God’s will for my life. The fact that I was an HFA ( high functioning alcoholic) was also complete surprise to me.

Given that, I’ve looked back at my journals and tried to create a few questions that, if asked, might have prompted me to look beneath my self-confident assumptions. With the help of some friends in recovery the following are some sample probing questions that might shed some light on topics that smack of self-will and controlling behavior. They are good questions for any of us, whether in recovery or not.

• When you were a kid, what did you swear you’d never do when you grew up?
• What area of your life just has to go right?
• What person causes you the most stress, no matter what you try?

These are just 3 from the The Not Scary Worksheet of Step 3.  From now on, it is also listed with the other worksheets in the sidebar of each post.

By working through the short worksheet, you can make a list of some hidden areas of your life that are out of your control and causing you stress. The more I dig for honest answers, the more I realize how much I still try to control people in my life and control the situations of my life. I say ‘dig’ because it is an excavation of hidden motives and instincts. At this point, fear and ego will step in and try to keep the mind locked into former thinking. Our lives and our stress level are the proof of how poorly our thinking has worked for us in the past.

We don’t have to believe in anyone else’s God, or accept their values. That’s one of the really basic tenants of the 12 Step programs.  All we need to do is believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves. Willingness to believe is the key that opens the door to this Power. There is a God and it’s not me.

It is when we try to make our will conform to God’s that we begin to use it rightly. ~ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 2012, p 40

I look at my history, my heritage. I had plenty of will power to make my life work, if self-will was going to work. It doesn’t–not alone. I needed His will and had no idea I was without it.

PS: The conviction of how clueless I can be keeps me looking for a deeper relationship with God. We don’t know what we don’t know. Do we?

Looking closely at this arch, you can see there is no mortar. I took this picture in Glendalough, Ireland. The religious settlement was originally founded by St Kevin in the 6th century.

My eye was drawn to the chunk missing in the middle. The stones from the entire arch are held together by the pressure exerted on that middle stone. If the stone was not the exact shape necessary, all the stones would collapse into rubble. This middle stone is called a Keystone.

What is the keystone of your life? I can tell you what mine was: self. I was living life like it was Heidi’s world. The following question was my predominant quest.

What can I do to make sure today goes according to my plan?  Just asking this question locked me into a life according to Heidi. I started every day with the same approach. As my drinking got worse, and I made worse decisions, I started drinking to escape the mess my life had become. It was an inevitable cycle of collapse. I was eventually sitting in the self-made rubble of my life.

My relationship with God was limited to an intellectual pursuit of sorts. The more I knew, the more righteous I felt. Give me a problem, I can give you the verse and bingo! I feel powerful. Sick. I know. But it’s the process that led me to believe I should be the keystone. I knew a lot. I earned it.

So I went to God with my sincere confidence of my power and asked for things I wanted. I told Him what was wrong with everything in my life, and I was such a good ‘disciple’ that I expected He would want to help me. It didn’t stop there. I went to Him with what I saw were the obvious needs of others. I prayed that He would give this one health, that one courage and another one a different job. I never openly bargained with God, because I felt that was wrong, but I certainly expected the same results. If I do this, then You should do that was implied. I was telling Him how to solve the problems that obviously needed solving. I felt like a part of the solution for everyone I knew. It was a heady experience. I called myself a prayer warrior. I certainly spent enough time daily in prayer to earn my fancy title.

The pressure of being the keystone to my own life, eventually began to crack me. I was crumbling just as surely as the keystone in the picture, and soon my self-directed life was in a rubble. I could not find a way to mortar the pieces back together. In fact, by the time I got to AA, I hardly cared anymore. Initially, AA was just another intellectual attempt at diagnosing the ‘problems’ of my life. If it was all due to the drinking, then maybe I could excuse it. I didn’t really expect life to get better. 

He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 62

~

PS: Remarkable, yes. I have gratitude for the new and triumphant arch through which I’m passing in my journey to freedom from self. It has to be God. It’s not me. Have you seen transformation in a life as a result of the 12 Steps?

What keeps you awake at night? ________________________________________

Pause and write down the first answer that came to mind. Or not.

I’ll go first. My answer a few months ago was finances. Pennies, Nickles, Dimes–money used to really scare me. The fear of money is actually Chrometophobia, from the Greek “crimata” or money. Money from that era was (chroma) or brightly colored. I don’t care what color it is, it’s a pain and I seem to have been born with a dislike of all things financial. As a child, I cried at Christmas because I was afraid that my parents spent too much money on gifts for us kids. I’d start stressing as soon as a wrapped package appeared. I can still feel that stress over gifts. I have a money phobia that has added stress and fear to my life for over 50 years.

Does your answer correlate with a long-standing fear? When was the first time you felt worried about that topic? Can you think of other times when you were obsessed about a similar situation or person? Does this same preoccupation come to mind when you’re idle, driving, waiting in line?

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 new-found 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. ~ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 2012, p 3

I  recently realized that I needed to go back to the first Steps, and with finances in mind, take another look at the principles. You can do this with your preoccupation. We can dance around the general principles of the program all day and at the end, we’re pleasantly stimulated, but no smarter, if we haven’t found a personal application. Finding the answer to the question of preoccupation is useful because it gives you something substantial to plug into the first three Steps.

Fill in the blank with that person or problem that keeps you awake.

1. I admit I’m powerless over ________ (person or problem) –that my thought life has become unmanageable.
2. I believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity (peace and serenity).
3. I am now making a decision to turn my will (my thinking) and my life (my actions) over to the care (direction) of God, and stop trying to handle this myself, because I can’t.

~

PS: This is a ‘we’ program. If you want to share a preoccupation that used to haunt you, it might encourage someone else to give this a try.

If Step 3 is making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him, then we could first look at how we make decisions.  Step 3 is not the action of turning our will and lives over, it’s deciding to do so. Let’s get specific. Which decision-making elements do you usually use?

These are mine:

• go with my gut
• ask advice
• research facts
• make a list of pros and cons
• wait as long as I can to decide
• pray

I ask this because before we can take Step 3 seriously, we could look at our history of decision-making and see if it’s working for us–or is it time to get some help?

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? ~ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 2012, p 37

For 50 plus years, I was unwilling to turn my will and my life over to His control because I wanted to control how I think and what I chose in this life. (It’s my life, after all!) The irony of it becomes clear when I start to look at the result of my choices… ouch. Deciding to turn our will (minds) and lives (actions) over to the care of God is a mammoth decision! Never wanting to be in the massively common and unimaginative majority, I have to pause. After looking around, it’s my observation that not many people actually live Step 3.  A few choose to. What’s been the result and what was their key?

The very few people who I’ve met are people who are not part of the common crowd. They’re usually characterized by a quiet joy, a peace. They have wisdom and serenity balanced by a healthy sense of humor. In short, they have what I want.

If you go back to the list above, you have my process for making a decision, reversed. This won’t work for everyone. But it is what I’ve learned in the program from some wonderfully wise Old Timers. First I pray about it, asking to be shown His will, then I wait as long as possible. In the meantime, if I feel uneasy, I do the list, the facts, ask for advice and in the end–I go with my gut.

Let me define my gut: I don’t make a decision until I feel good about it. So far I’ve found that if feeling good about it is the objective, I never run out of time and God gives me the greased direction just as I need it. I’m not forcing solutions anymore, I’m letting Him guide me.

Apply this to Step 3. If you’ve done Step 2 then you believe there’s a Power greater than yourself. Ask then, for guidance on taking Step 3. Wait to decide until you feel prompted to do so. In the meantime, you can check with someone who lives the Steps, observe those who don’t and I’m confident your gut will help you decide what’s right for you.

PS: When that happens, you will have the key to deciding to do Step 3: willingness.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our directions path.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it – then you are ready to follow directions take certain steps.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care and direction of God, as we understood Him. (Step 3)

Sometimes I’ve wished they’d just left it like he wrote it, but increasingly I’m glad they overruled his hard-sell language. There is something in me that rebels against familiar authoritarianism. Do I really want someone else to tell me what to think again? I hope not. I want to be teachable, yet I’ve learned I need to be free to question, to think.

“You think too much,” was an accusation from my past. Most often this was the automatic response to my questions. I do love to question. It’s how I process, how I search, how I learn the truth for myself. The authoritarians don’t encourage questioning. Questions are messy, they can be seen as challenging, they are unsettling. “We’ve already decided that.” was a common reply. Eventually, I picked up my genuine questions and left the land of black and white.

From a very young age, I knew God and I knew He loved me. So I was not leaving church and God behind, just church. I told my preacher that He was not my Holy Spirit and cut off all contact with the figure heads that I’d looked up to. Where did that leave me?  My life had become untenable with them in charge so I swung to the opposite approach. I was in charge. They were off that pedestal and, unwittingly, I climbed onto it.

Life didn’t get worse. It didn’t get better. It just got old.  It wasn’t until I started Step 4 that I realized how truly difficult my life had always been. The more I wrote, the more I shook my head. This life I was living would make a better book than a life. I had nightmares during Step 4, spending a whole weekend doing nothing but writing it out. I was depressed and angry and hurt. My disgust turned from others inward. I wanted to drink again. (All of this was typical, but I didn’t realize that.) The process of climbing back down from the pedestal was difficult.

That’s why I still question myself. That’s why I love Step 3. I am alcoholic and cannot manage my own life. No human power could have relieved my alcoholism (my self-will, my dependence on others). God could and did when I sought Him. By doing the Steps I was seeking His direction for my life. I was getting some answers, finally.

PS: In the next post I’m going to share some of the questions I ask of myself regarding Step 3. What has been your experience with directions and questions?

At first, my conservative church background left me wary of being a part of such rowdy camaraderie. I was astonished that men (men!) were talking about their feelings and their failings. What? Wouldn’t they lose the respect for each other talking like that in front of God and everybody? Guess not. I had a lot to learn about respect, honesty and an organization that has only one ultimate authority as addressed in Tradition Two.

To this day, I find I compare my AA experience with the non-denominational church experience of my younger days. Not surprisingly, I’ve found more differences than similarities. Besides, AA is not a church. I Googled ‘how to become a good church member’ to come up with the first list which came from a Baptist preacher. Googling ‘how to become a good recovery member’ didn’t yield anything useful. The difference between the two is considerable.

Why would I share my comparison of the two experiences? Because I know many people are reluctant to get involved in AA, in part, because of their previous church experience. As soon as the word God enters, they back away. Those who need fellowship and desperately need a new life path back away. I also wanted a new life, a sense of belonging to something bigger than myself so, initially, I tried to use my church password. That did not work.

My Password to a Church’s Membership vs. My Password to Recovery’s Serenity.

Good church member requirements:

1. Demonstrate a Good Attitude Toward the Pastor/Leaders (partially defined by submitting to the church teachings)
2. Maintain a Good Attitude Toward Other Believers (including warning those who are unruly, and maintaining analogous behavior)
3. Show a Good Attitude Toward God (defined by being an obedient follower of church doctrine and leadership)
4. My church password was all one word in lowercase: followlikesheep

Recovery program elements:

1. Become rigorously honest with ourselves, God and others
2. Be willing to grow along spiritual lines, living by spiritual principles (12 Steps)
3. Allow God to do for us what we could not do for ourselves
4. My AA recovery password is all one word uppercase: RIGOROUSHONESTY

The elements of AA comprise the reason I stay active in the program. I also like the fact that recovery is a fellowship with those who have admitted failure and found themselves to be faulty and in need of change. The only membership requirement is a desire to stop drinking (or obsessing, or fixing, or drugging or other addictive behaviors resulting in calamity.)

Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 68

In my experience with a non-denominational church the emphasis seemed to be submission to man (God’s elect); in my experience of recovery the emphasis is on turning over our will and our life to God, period. In an organization like church, it’s necessary to grab a hold of the doctrine, the role of being an active member, and follow the prescribed way while encouraging others to do the same.

In AA I struggle to listen to God for myself, discern His will for me and give up the glorifying of man or self. It’s letting go, releasing. In the practice of Step 11, I daily attempt to set aside my will in favor of His.

AA does not attempt to replace church. In fact, my experience with AA has helped me define what I seek in a worship context. After being in recovery for several years, I found a church home in Oregon that encouraged my AA principles for living.

~PS:  This is only my experience. I don’t speak for AA or for any churches. I’m curious. Based on your experience, how would you compare the two? Do you think they bear comparing? Want to share your passwords?

I picked up this journal yesterday and the little piece of foil fell out. I’d been using it for a bookmark back in my drinking days. It’s from the seal on Kendal Jackson Merlot. My fave. I’d know it anywhere. I can still smell that earthly tang, precisely recall the full-bodied juice and feel the warm glow when hit me. Sigh.

Do I miss drinking? Sometimes. I miss it to the extent that I’m still insane. I was not created for self-destruction but alcohol is a one way ticket to that insanity. It waits.

Inside the journal are notes that I took from readings, meetings, and conversations when I first got sober.  I like to process things with a pen in hand. On January 4, 2008 I find that I went to the 7:00 and the 9:00 meetings. The readings chosen each time from the Big Book were both from the same excerpt. When that happens, I can hardly deny God is at work.

Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, “I don’t miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time.” As ex-problem drinkers we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn’t happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end. ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, pp 151-152

True, so true. Giving up the wine was not automatically making me happy. I was knowing loneliness like never before. I was now unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it–and this from someone on Step 9.

Anyone in recovery would expect that things should keep getting better or why would people stay with the program? Why, indeed.

I took very few notes, but I was listening during the meeting and these people were laughing, kidding one another and enjoying life. No one else seemed lonely and despairing of life.

One of my notes says, “Get out of the way and God does it.” Not profound at first glance. Trite sounding, even. Someone also said, “Restless, Irritable and Discontent equals Anger”. Ok. The only other note from that meeting is, “Gotta get a God.”

None of this looks very profound now, but for some reason, this is the day that I went back to the beginning of the program and took an official, fall on my face Step 3.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 59

When I returned to the room, another AA guy chose to read the very same passage from the book. It was my time. I was ready to set aside a little of my self-will and look for His will in my life. I had stopped whistling in the dark.

~PS: It seems I wasn’t ready to even think about the need for Step 3 until I’d faced myself in Steps 4 and admitted the mess of my life in Step 5. What was I doing taking Step 3 after Step 9? If you’ve taken Step 3, what was your experience?

Initially, I didn’t ask that key question. Did you? Those of us who have a religious affiliation, can’t help but read the first three steps and filter the wording through that former set of beliefs. I say former because no matter what I believed or what I thought when I got ready to seriously take the Steps, I was building from there. We cannot stay exactly in the same mindset if we’re to expect progress. The Steps call for change, for healing, for the hard work of self-examination.

The steps were listed on a banner in the room upstairs at the club. I remember reading them as I was waiting for the meetings to get started. I thought, Step One, Two, Three–check! Now what the heck is Step 4 about?

I thought I came into the rooms on Step 4. The other 3 were a mere formality, since I had a systematic theology in place and had a ‘relationship’ with God already. I had no questions about those first 3. Did you?

If you did, then in some respects you could be more honest than I could be. I was dishonest to the extent that I was lying to myself. It doesn’t matter how unintentional. I was not honest. I got so sidetracked with defending my view of God that it has taken me years to get back to those initial steps and really look at them. The whole Higher Power and God of Your Understanding irritated me. This self-righteous attitude did little to keep me sober and probably became irritating for others who had to listen to me expound on my beliefs.

I already “knew” God and I could give you chapter and verse documentation on my salvation. I say my beliefs led to my dishonesty because I continued to lie to myself about my need for reforming the basic life view that landed me around the tables.

I knew the difference between justification and sanctification, but it got a little crusty in the practical application for me. For some reason I was not conforming to the image of God. My reflection of His image was becoming more and more diseased. I was at a dead end. In fact, I was just wanting to come to the end of life period. Hold on. Was I ready to come to the end of self? No. Not when I first read Steps 1 to 3. Thinking I knew it all was probably my biggest hurdle to applying the program.

In reality, the self-willed Heidi was so bereft of any God-like characteristics that I could no longer deny my false self, my hypocrisy, my barren life. My life had become as fruitless as a dried up, diseased and worm-eaten lone apple tree. Time to chop it down.

Being convinced we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do? The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 60.

I previously posted my overly dramatic Step 3.  So much more work is necessary. That was the breakthrough–the beginning. It is only now that I realize I need to take a really honest look at those initial Steps if I want to keep growing.

PS: I would imagine coming into the program with other belief systems might also lead to assumptions for those first 3 Steps. What is your reaction?

This is my prayer corner. The colored pencils are from Iowa. I bought them at an art supply store when I started coloring during prayer. Bear with me. I can explain…maybe.

I dream in color. I respond emotionally to color. Being in the wrong climate devoid of much color used to drop me into a depressive torpor. Arid climates would make me feel like a lizard suffocating on a hot brick. I am less controlled by color now…but I still crave it. Living in my RV gives me the opportunity to travel while surrounded by my favorite colorful things and with my own supply of colorful prayer tools.

Before I stopped drinking, I based all my prayer times on reactions to scripture or readings. I would read a section and then write out what I learned from the reading.  I still grab those journals and find treasured passages that should have lit my path through tough times. Of course, much of the good that could have come from the wisdom in these readings was drowned in alcohol. One thing about drinking: I don’t remember much of what I read. The journals show me that God was giving me a lot of guidance and my insistence on the drug was a constant dilution of His loving messages.

After stopping the drug, I started coloring during prayer. I would still read during the first part of my morning break. Then I’d journal a little and empty my emotional bundle on the page. Finally, I would pick out a color that represented how I felt and start to color the little sketches that bordered my journal page.

I found the coloring to be a soothing meditative method. From this, I began to buy coloring books to use. More of my time was spent coloring than writing some days. I suppose I was learning a way to still my mind a bit. I was learning silence. Following the pencils with my eyes and enjoying the colors was enabling me to relax in His presence in a way I had not found previously. I used to love coloring when I was a kid, but this goes beyond that. It has become a prayer tool. One that works without words. A tool for silence and stillness.

The following comes from Into Action. The placement is at the end of Step 10 and just before Step 11. It summarizes why doing the Steps is important and stresses how a right relationship with God is dependent on prayer.

Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. But we must go further and that means more action. Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer.

~ PS: Sherrie Theriault, my favorite recovery poet and artist also designs coloring books.

Before I got sober at the age of 55, I was trapped by an ice storm at an abbey near Dubuque, in NE Iowa. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. There are no coincidences. I’m beginning to see that in my life, anyway, there are only events that cause me to choose. I can choose to take the climbing path towards Him or I can choose my own descending path… It’s what I believe. My choice.

According to my journal, that stormy week I spent time in the wisdom of Murray, Merton and Manning. A continuous thread throughout the readings was the topic of prayer.

While at the Abbey, I joined the services every few hours, sometimes even getting up well before dawn. I am not Catholic, so I was frequently lost while trying to follow the liturgy during the many times of communal prayer. After blurting out when it was not my turn to be responsive, I learned to just follow silently—not an easy thing for a public speaker, once English teacher.

This was the perfect metaphor for how lost I was in prayer, period. I was well acquainted with conversational prayer and comfortable praying aloud, in groups or even leading prayer in front of large gatherings. What I wasn’t comfortable with was…silence.

It was this week that I first started to practice silence in my personal prayer. It seemed like an oxymoron. Wasn’t I supposed to be talking, here? No. In my readings, I kept bumping up against the idea of being silent before God. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

I already believed that God wanted to love me, to comfort me, to guide me, but I was not able to experience it. I couldn’t feel it! It wasn’t for lack of trying. I tried. I did. It wasn’t working. It was like my God was silent. Why did I feel that way?

It seemed that I was already isolated from God, so with the three authors recommending that I try silence, what did I have to risk? He wasn’t talking, why should I?

I tried coming into the presence of my God with silence–not with my words; with my heart–not my head. I tried doing something that I now call practicing the presence of God. Me, just being still, being aware of His love. I was seeking His love and His will. I wanted Him in my life. For the first time, I really did. I was getting desperate. I was becoming tired of living my life according to me. I didn’t know it, but I was being led to a new path… one that would call for the sacrifice of old ways and a program of new ones.

This willingness to be silent was a new willingness to be dependent. After a few weeks, this confidence of God within fueled my outward dependence on Him. I think it’s actually the principle behind Step 2, don’t you? I was finding a right relationship with God. I was tiring of the intellectualizing faith that had given me information without relationship. God was in my head, but not my heart. I had God, but He didn’t have me. Not yet.

The God of intellect displaced the God of our Fathers. ~ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 2012, p 29 Step 2

I gave up drinking less than a month later. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

~

PS: It wasn’t until I pulled this journal from the shelf that I discovered when I started to practice the presence of God. Have you tried it?