“Being convinced, we were at Step Three…” — Alcoholics Anonymous
Some of us noticed that line lands right after How It Works, and the thought comes in: what do they mean? Turning our will and our lives over to the God of our understanding sounds like a tall order. But is it?
Our life is our actions. Our will is our thoughts. Does a court sentence you on your thoughts or on your actions? So we get sponsors and lean on the groups to help us sort out thoughts and actions that are blown out of proportion by alcoholism.
Somehow, some way, drinking cut us off from the real world and we lived in a world of our own making. And when we were asked to step out of our dream world, we collided with reality and fought — hard. Not intentionally. It just happens.
After making the decision — yes, this is going to work for me; yes, I can do this; yes, I have felt like these people in AA; yes, I am ready to move forward — peeking our heads out of the dark shadows of alcoholism, we see a crack of light that is recovery. And we step toward it today.
Our biggest asset is the help in the rooms — connection over isolation — and it starts to feel good. Our own self-will has thrashed our lives, and now that we have taken the smallest of steps toward something bigger, the payoff is already there.
What’s one action today you can take toward the light instead of back into isolation?
