Steps 3 and 11

I just thought I'd start a thread about steps 3 and 11 for those of us working the 12 steps to have a place to talk about our spirituality. I never had a belief in a higher power because I wasn't religious, until the steps led me to a power greater than myself, so I thought I'd bring up the "Higher Power Steps". What are your thoughts?

(Maybe for political correctness it would help if we just kept discussion to a higher power and not get into details about any religious beliefs. Thanks)

Great subject Rayna!

I had great difficulty with the concept of higher power when I came into AA. I had spent a childhood being threatened with "God" (whatever that meant to the person threatening me I'm not sure).

Anyhow, when I came in the halls I thought I had to be religious and I was relieved when they said I only needed to believe in a power greater than myself. At first my higher power was my home group. After a few months, my higher power became my dad who passed away.

I started to call my higher power "God" because everyone else did and I just wanted to be like everyone else. I couldn't figure out why I was having so much trouble praying and I struggled constantly with Step 3 - I could not understand how to turn my life over.

I finally realized one day that due to my past threats of God, it was the name I didn't like. I also realized that I couldn't stand saying the Our Father at the end of every meeting. That it made me feel that I was lying to myself and doing something I didn't like again just because everyone else does it.

This happened about a month or so ago and I decided to rename my higher power. I thought about what I believe my higher power is, which is Energy Source. That's kind of a mouthful, so now I call my Higher Power "Source". I also begain to not say the Our Father at the end of the meeting.

Instead, I pray to Source to help me do the next right thing, stay away from a drink, and whatever else I need to pray for at that moment (lately it's been alot of acceptance!).

This is a great post! Can't wait to hear yours and others thoughts on this.

Tranquility

Nice.

I was the same way. My mom converted to a religion to a different religion when she married my dad. They tried to get me involved and from the time I was a child I just couldn't get it. When I got older I searched for something to believe in. A friend of mine practiced Wicca so I gave that a go, but even that was too structured. So I decided to be pagan. Basically worshipping nature. Feeling at piece sitting and looking at nature.

When I got to AA, I had a notion that they talked of God because I knew people in the passed who had made their higher power a band or something when they were knew. I didn't say the Lord's Prayer in the beginning until I really listened to the words and saw that it can be a program prayer too. Now I say it sometimes and sometimes I don't.

I was so desparate to stay sober that I threw myself into the first step but was pretty scared of the God steps. Then one day after a meeting I was telling a friend how I had gotten to AA (over a piture of beer, I said to my friend that we should quit drinking and go to AA, and we did the next day and I haven't drank since). I said to my friend after this meeting, "I don't know what put that thought in my head, I guess it was God." I was shocked that I had said that. In the second and third steps I began to start to become willing to believe in a higher power. My sponsor for my second step, had me call 5 women and find out what their idea of a higher power was. The point was for me to see that it was a higher power of my understanding. The point was for me to see that no one was going to shove anything down my throat.

I have a STRONG aversion to being told what to do. I think that's why I could never find a religion. I didn't want to be TOLD what my beliefs were. I think if they had done that at my first meeting, I wouldn't have been back.

In 'We Agnostics' in the bigbook, it says the purpose of the book and the steps is so that I can find a power greater than myself that I can turn it all over to. Having that power in my life makes things SO much more simple. When I'm at a loss, I can turn it over and ask for guidence, and then as long as I do the next right thing, I'm on the right path - for me.

I honestly do not define my higher power. I too call my higher power God and I capitalize it because that power saved my life. Do I think my higher power is an all knowing being? That is not my belief. Some days I think my higher power is just my good conscience, the part of me that keeps me on the right track. Some days I think my higher power "speaks" to me through my good conscience and most days I feel I hear my higher power in my thoughs, the people around me, in meetings, here at PC.

I've quit trying to understand God. All I know is that if I'm willing to believe in SOMETHING, no matter what it is, that my life runs more smoothly.

When others in meetings or my friends or what have you say, "I believe in this God or that God" I have no aversion. Its when people tell me which one is the right one that I get upset and walk away.

That is what I absolutely love in AA. Everything is a suggestion. No one tells me what I can and cannot do, what I can or cannot believe. As long as I work the steps to the best of my ability and follow the traditions, I have a design for living that works. And really for me, its the design for living that I see in just about any spiritual belief system I've ever learned about.

To thine own self be true, be kind to others, clean up anger, give back. How simple yet not always so easy for a control freak like myself. So my higher power or God or HP keeps me from trying to control the show, from being the director. As long as I keep it on my side of the street, and don't tell others what to do, I find myself quite happy.

I could go on....but I'll pose more questions down the thread lol!

Oh boy - are you and I similar in so many ways!!!!! I took that religion test to see what I was closest to and it said neo-paganism!

I also think part of my problem was being forced to believe in one thing! That is the wonderful thing of AA. When I chaired at my meeting yesterday two people brought up God. Once said she didn't know who it was and the other said she didn't know how to pray.

So at the end of the meeting I just wrapped it up with my little speel on how your higher power can be anything you want as long as it is bigger than you! The girl who didn't know how to pray came up and spoke to me after. She is the one whose boyfriend is in ICU after having a massive brain hemmorhage. I told her all she can do it pray for her God to his will but give her the courage and strength to accept it. Sometimes that's all we can do.

I was at a meeting this morning where I said that I'm really into 3 and 11 now and how they get it but people on the outside wouldn't. In the last week I have come so far on these two steps it's unbelievable!

I am so glad I am sober for today and don't feel the need to drown out my feelings in alcohol!

Tranquility

Yes we are very similar lol.

I was told when I was new that I could borrow my sponsor's higher power if I needed to haha. She asked me if I believed that SHE believed in a higher power and I did, because she had almost 5 years sober haha. So because I believed that she believed, I could borrow hers. But I started developing my own concept shortly after.

Its funny that you mentioned the praying, because that was going to be my next topic on 3 & 11. Praying. I don't say the written prayers....when I was working 3, my sponsor told me to memorize the third step prayer, but I didn't like all the thy's and thou's and wildst lol. Then in the following paragraph, the book says we can create our own wording, so thats what I did. I have my own little prayers, and its more like just talking to HP. I ask for direction and things like that, but its never the same wording. Or when I'm scared, like if I'm driving in a storm, I'll say outloud "Hey God you got my back right? Ok thanks." LOL!! When I've shared in meetings that I talk to God as though God is sitting next to me my friend joking whispered "That's schizophrenia" LOL!!!

When I'm frustrated about something, my version of the 3rd step is just to look up and say "I'm done!! Take it!!"

I believe that I have a higher power and you have a higher power etc. I believe that if something is going on with me and someone else, that the higher powers talk about it. Since I'm a selfish alcoholic, I want my own!! LOL!!

I just know that my concept of my HP evolves all the time. I love that. My concept grows as I grow. I'm glad we seemed to have found a safe place to talk about this.

Today's mediation from "Daily Reflections"

SEEKING EMOTIONAL STABILITY

When we developed still more, we discovered that best possible source of emotional stability had to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we really depended upong God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 116

"All my life I depended on people for my emotional needs and security, but today I cannot live that way anymore. By the grace of god, I have admitted my powerlessness over people, places and things. I had been a real 'people addict'; wherever I went there had to be someone who would pay some kind of attention to me. It was the kind of attitude that could only get worse, because the more I depended on others and demanded attention, the less I received.

I have given up believing that any human power can relieve me of that empty feeling. Although I remain a fragile human being who needs to work AA's Steps to keep this particular principle before my personality, it is only a loving God who can give me inner peace and emotional stability."

I thought this was a good step 11 reading, so I thought I'd post it.

Boy I need to read that again. I'm at work right now and will be heading home soon. I will post when I get home. This hit home with me because of something happening right now.

Just had to say thanks because I needed this - will post later.

Tranq

You're welcome Tranquility. I think I'll try and remember to post meditations here daily.

Meditation for Aug 23 from "Each Day a New Beginning - Meditations for Women"

Were our knowledge of human relationships a hundredfold more reliable than it is now, it would still be foolish to seek ready-made solutions for problems of living in the index of a book.
--Mirra Komarovky

The problems each of us experience have within their own paramaters the solutions most fitting. And we each must discover those solutions, understand their appropriatness, and absorb them into the body of information that defines who we are and who we are becoming.

We learn experientially because only then is our reality significantly affected. Others' experiences are helpful to our growth and affirm how similar is our pain, but each of us must make our own choices, take responsible action in our own behalf.

How fortunate that we ware now in a position to make healthy dicisions about our relationships! No longer the victim, we have the personal power to choose how we want to spend our time and with whom. Through active particiapation in all our relationships, we can discover many of the hidden elements in our own natures and develop more fully all the characteristics unique to our personhood. Our growth as recovering women is enhanced in proportion to our sincere involvement within the relationships we've chosen.

I can inform myself about who I am within my relationships. Therein lie the solution to my problems.

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[b]Raynaadi said:
How fortunate that we ware now in a position to make healthy dicisions about our relationships! No longer the victim, we have the personal power to choose how we want to spend our time and with whom. Through active particiapation in all our relationships, we can discover many of the hidden elements in our own natures and develop more fully all the characteristics unique to our personhood.

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Here, Here - quite something when we discover that we don't have to be around toxic people and how liberating that is (even if it's some of your own family!)

Tranquility

August 24 from 'Daily Reflections'

A RIDDLE THAT WORKS

It may be possible to find explanations of spiritual experiences such as ours, but I have often tried to explain my own and have succeeded only in giving the story of it. I know the feeling it gave me and the results it has brought, but I realize I may never fully understand its deeper why and how.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 313

"I had a profound spiritual experience during an open A.A. meeting, which led me to blurt out, 'I'm an alcoholic!' I have not had a drink since that day. I can tell you the words I heard just prior to my admission, and how those words affected me, but as to why it happened, I do not know. I believe a power greater than myself chose me to recover, yet I do not know why. I try not to worry or wonder about what I do not yet know; instead, I trust that if I continue to work the Steps, practice the A.A principles in my life, and share my story, I will be guided lovingly toward a deep and mature spirituality in which more will be revealed to me. For the time being, it is a gift for me to trust God, work the Steps and help others."

I'm glad I decided to post these every day because its helping me remember to read them lol. Anything in quotes is from the books, not my words. I really like the question asked in here, the why did I get chosen to recover question. I struggled with that in early recovery. The why me question...why was I chosen to be given this gift? It was like survivor's guilt. My sponsor pointed out that no one is "chosen", its more that we can all have it, but we each individually have to "chose" it for ourselves.

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Raynaadi said:

The problems each of us experience have within their own paramaters the solutions most fitting. And we each must discover those solutions, understand their appropriatness, and absorb them into the body of information that defines who we are and who we are becoming.

We learn experientially because only then is our reality significantly affected.
I .

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Hi,

I am a recovering addict, but not a substance addict, I also have a self disorder. I hope it will be ok, my sharing here.
I loved the above quote, and also some of the previous ones in this thread.

I just got back from being away and I had been thinking of sharing here in 3 and 11, and that got me through some difficult times.
I find holidays painful most often. I find relationshps so difficult and going alone also difficult because of feeling alone.
What happened was, I thought of some advice I had given someone here about detachment with love and then found myself submerged in out of control irritation and anger at something relatively irrational.
I thought "who am I to give that newcomer advice to detach with love? I dont do it myself when the heat is on, its so, so easy to say things likethat!" So, I felt I had to find out how to obey my own advice even just so that I could give some sort of example.
I had been following my companions in the car to visit a special spot, (Dylan Thomas's house ), and what I had been told was a 20 mile journey turned out to be 50, and I had to keep following. So, first to unstepp myself back from the anger, I asked what my part had been:
I didnt look at the map, I had handed over responsiblity. Then I had to keep praying the steps 1,2, 3, prayers over and over. So, when we finally arrived I was in just about fit state to have our riviving coffee at a sweet little tea shop in a seaside town without being in the grip of anger and spoiling everything. I realised as I got out of the resentment, that I had been in a completely mind altered state. I know these states have overwhelmed me all my life and I am coming to understand that is part of the disorder.
I was hanging on by a thread, but the thread was connecting me to my hp, it got me through the situation.

During the holiday, I was trying to behave differently to my usual patterns. I had some vigerous arguments. I am trying to stand my ground and stand by my truth more. I hope it is for the highest good. I have had so many years of abdicating what I believe for the other person's truth and that doesnt work either. I dont know if this friendship will survive, I am trying to grow and relate more honestly, and challenge others to be the best they can be. I know a lot of the programme says 'live and let live', I am trying to find a different sort of balance, but I am not sure I have found it!! It was quite uncomfortable at times.

I'm glad I went and I'm glad I'm home.

riverX

Hi River,

I'm a full believe that the steps work on just about anything, including addictions other then alcohol or drugs. I'm biased because they worked for me lol!! But the whole purpose of the steps is to help us find some power greater than ourselves. Its been this spiritual growth that has helped me cope with my alcoholism as well as my dx of multiple sclerosis last summer. The only the 12 steps haven't completely helped for me is grief, so I'm getting outside help for that.

I meant to post a meditation daily in this thread and have been slacking, and I don't have the time right now, but maybe later today I'll post another.

I'm glad you've found us River!

Thank you for sharing that with me.
I respect your spirituality and courage at the way you are dealing with this dx. I think there is a lot I could learn from your example.

Sometimes I ask myself, and people ask me 'has it worked for you?' and I honestly dont know how to answer. I cant say I'm happy, but I do just believe that the principles of healing in the steps are the best I have come accross. And there have been moments when I have experienced how it can work.

From Daily Reflections for September 2.

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FINDING "A REASON TO BELIEVE"

The willingness to grow is the essence of all spiritual developement.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 171

A line from a song goes, "...and I look to find a reason to believe..." It reminds me that at one time I was not able to find a reason to believe that my life was all right. Even though my life had been saved by my coming to AA, three months later I went out and drank again. Someone told me: "You don't have to believe. Aren't you willing to believe that there is a reason for you life, even though you may not know yourself what that reason is, or that you may not sometimes know the right way to behave?" When I saw how willing I was to believe there was a reason for my life, then I could start to work on the Steps. Now when I begin with, "I am willing...," I am using the key that leads to action, honesty, and an openness to a Higher Power moving through my life.

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Its those moments during the day when my willingness' gets turned against me, thats when I lose it, that is my challenge, to find the willingness to go against my destructive willingness. When I do take the actions it is often inspite of myself, but once I do the next right thing instead I feel better. i work at home, so its more of a challenge keep myself in reality and on task.

riverx

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find and share recovery images at anonymousspace.com</center>

From Daily Reflections for September 8.

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"WE ASKED HIS PROTECTION"

We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 59

I could not manage my life alone. I had tried that road and failed. My "ultimate sin" dragged me down to the lowest level I have ever reached and, unable to function, I accepted the fact that I desperately needed help. I stopped fighting and surrendered entirely to God.

Only then did I start growing! God forgave me. A Higher Power had to to have saved me, because the doctors doubted that I would survive. I have forgiven myself now and I enjoy a freedom I have never before experienced. I've opened my heart and mind to HIm. The more I learn, the less I know - a humbling fact - but I sincerely want to keep growing. I enjoy serenity, but only when I entrust my life totally to God. As long as I am honest with myself and ask for His help, I can maintain this rewarding existence.

Just for today, I strive to live His will for me - soberly.

I thank God that today I can choose not to drink.

Today, life is beautiful!

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I keep forgetting to keep our spirituality thread going and first I found the little image I put in, and then I read todays meditation and it fit perfectly into the steps 3&11 thread.

This reminded me of when I opened myself up to the possibility of a higher power. I was in the first week of sobriety, talking to a guy after a meeting and I said, "I don't know what made me go to an AA meeting, it must have been God." When I said that, I shocked myself. I didn't know I believed in anything. After that, my concept of my higher power began to grow and evolve.

About a week ago, in the throws of depresion, I finally got into enough pain to make a God box. I took an empty coffee can and covered it with cut pieces of a paper bag. I taped the brown paper to it and then drew on it, drew the circle triangle on it and wrote "God's In Box". I included the Serenity Prayer and my little prayers that I say when I'm in doubt or confusion. Now I can write my problem on a slip of paper, fold it up, and drop it in there. I also write my charactor defects that flair up when I write an inventory. I've taken to kissing the piece of paper, don't as me why!

I had written employment on a piece of paper and put it in God's In Box. A few days later, I was trying to get my old job back. I said to my sponsee last night "its like that box is magic!" LOL!!!!!

I love this feeling of being spiritually fit. I know this too shall pass and the hard times will come again, but as long as I keep surviving each hard time sober and alive, I know I can take the next hardship as well.

So, the next topic for our spirituality thread is, do you have a God box? It took me over 2 years to follow people's suggestion and make one. And now I love it!