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Originally Posted by Edge11
Hi, Just wanted to check in and tell you a little about myself and where I'm at in recovery. I've been sober since October 2011..In 2008 I through away 8yrs of sobriety and it took me 4yrs to make it back to the rooms of AA. I have a good sponsor and attend meetings every week. I'm sort of stuck on the third step..control issues..I also suffer from mental Illness and have decide to seek help for this. I know that alcohol is only a symptom of my disease and taking a drink isn't going to solve any of my problems. I'm searching for happiness and peace of mind...
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welcome to the forum, edge. re step 3
Step 3 has often been referred to as a stumbling block of recovery. Many of us just get stuck here and can't seem to move on. The reason for this, as alcoholics we like to take something simple and complicate it, but it doesn't have to be that way
if we become willing and open minded. Now with that in mind let's look at this step, beginning with the word decision. What is a decision?
A decision is a action word, it is a beginning, a starting point or looking at it from a point of recovering,
it is the time we let go of our old attitudes and let the steps begin to build new attitudes in our lives as we make mistakes and grow in spiritual principles. As you can see now, being willing and open minded is very important as far as decision and the Third Step are concerned. Simply put, a decision is accepting this step into our lives.
The next part of the step we must look at is
"To turn our will and our lives." We must ask ourselves, what does the step mean by our will and our lives? Our will is our way of doing things. We always want to fix things to the way we want them, no matter who it hurts or destroys. It comes from the core of our disease, self-centerness. Our lives simply mean our day-to-day affairs. Our problems, our worries and our pain.
Now let's look at the words "over to the care of God as we understand Him." Many of us couldn't or wouldn't relate to that word God. By the time we reached AA many of us were Atheist or Agnostic and some of us had a God who was vengeful.
Here again is where we need to be willing and open minded and honest. The type of honesty we are talking about here is self honesty. We must be honest enough to admit that there is a power that is higher than ourselves.
It doesn't matter what this power is. Often times people use the rooms at first as their higher power. Afterall people in sobriety know more about sobriety than we do. They are called the "winners". The program tells us God as
we understood him. It doesn't have to be a God of someone else's belief,
but a God of your belief. This is where much confusion comes in the program.
A final word my sponsor told me when i got stuck about my will vs what my HP wanted for me. She said, when in doubt, don't."
i do hope this may help you, edge. My "self will run riot" caused me so much pain. When I decided to try life in a new way I discovered the freedom that I didn't need to orchestrate the world. What a relief!
Sorry for the long post.