Struggling with the 3rd step

Question I'm struggling with the 3rd step because I'm not the most religious person but also I'm not a atheist can I get a better understanding from anyone on this please

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Great question, most of us were in the same boat, definitely me. Lemme do a very quick review first bc 1 and 2 go into 3.

In step 1 we admit we were powerless over alcohol, we start to understand the disease of alcoholism (mental obsession/physical allergy) also we admit our lives are unmanageable (our thoughts and actions are leading us astray)

Step 2 we find our own concept of a Higher Power (whatever works for you) and we believe that this HP can restore us to sanity. Why? Remember Step 1, that our lives were unmanageable. Our best thinking and actions pretty much fit the definition of insanity.

Step 3 "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him"

Our "will" is our thinking, and our "lives" is our actions. So we're now turning these over to God. Step 3 is a decision to do this, that's all you're doing here. A decision without action isn't really anything at all. How do we take action? The action is steps 4-9 + 10/11/12. This is where you'll start to see and experience Gods will. The 3rd step prayer relates to this "action" well too. So with the 3rd step we're saying we're prepared to take action in turning our will and lives over to God by continuing the steps 4-9 +10/11/12.

Hmu if you have any questions, I'm outta work rn with a broken ankle so I'm available. :+1:

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Another take on the third step...

It is not about religion.

It's about a higher power of your understanding. The word God is just a convenient placeholder. For some of us, our drinking and thinking led us to try to control everything. We tried to control our drinking. We tried to control other people and their actions. We may even have demanded that the world operate the way we wanted it to. We were trying to control the universe. That didn't end well.

For some of us, the trick to getting sober was recognizing that it wasn't alcohol that kept us drunk. It was our thinking. The more we tried to control everything, the more we drank. We needed to learn that there was something other than us running the universe. When we let go of that control and handed it over to some "thing" (God, a doorknob, the Great Spaghetti Monster), life got better.

AA is a spiritual program, not a religious one. And the steps are not commandments, they are suggestions. Your higher power will be different from mine. So long as it helps you stay sober, that's all that matters.

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Both are fantastic explanation’s! Well done!

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Thanks for the explanation. Struggle with step 3 as well.

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Thank you! My sponsor helped me out alot.

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Donny said it best.

I just wanted to share a story I posted on today's message here on Loosid. I think it fits this post.

In the Army we was trained to do everything as a team. A team is definitely a force greater than myself. There is no way I could fight a battle alone and be able to win, much less a war. Especially a war within myself. Granted we are trained to have mental toughness and fortitude, yet we can't win by ourselves. For me my disease of addiction/alcoholism completely shredded my mental toughness and fortitude. My will (decisions) got me into the war with addiction. Logic says my will (decisions) can win the war with addiction. What I failed to realize due to my ego is that addiction is definitely a power greater than my self, a negative power but still a power greater than myself. Especially fighting against both ego and addiction. The disease of addiction and ego would intentionally mislead me and say, "you can do this alone, you don't need help." All along they're both sitting over there plotting and plannning their next moves, while already having the intel on my next move. The disease of addiction and ego was always two moves ahead of me on the chess board. I needed something greater than myself. I needed a team to help fight this battle and war. I needed a power greater than myself to fight these battles and fight the war. I had to surrender that I am powerless to fight this all alone on my will. I had to surrender to and accept a power greater than myself to help fight a power greater than myself (addiction & my ego). I can't fight this without my recovery/sobriety team and family. My higher power put that recovery team and family in place for me. All I had and still have to do is surrender to and accept them and their help. Thanks to my higher power I can now have hope in winning this war with addiction.

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That step is creepy. I worked through it with my sponsor, but it didn't resonate well with me.

I read the 3rd step prayer for 3 years every morning till started sinking. Is just a miracle that we let happen. Trust me going on 12 years, some days are better than others.

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Dude, very well put! :+1:

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Big Book of AA page 28, 3rd paragraph. “We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired”
Also read pages 46 and 47. All we need is a basic conception of a power greater than ourselves “to commence spiritual growth”
Basically I can’t fix what I have with what I have. I need help. Help form a higher power.

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Honestly and this for everyone that has commented thanks and I have decided my higher power is the program or a fellowship in general because if this is what finding the program has done for me in just about four months as far physically, mentally and emotionally I know that the possibilities are endless for me. I've got a job . Happier than I've been in a long time. I now feel like a contributing member of society.wow just not too far back I was a nobody with a roof over my head

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Great stuff here. :clap:
I like to think of it in simplistic terms. For me God, your Higher Power, Morgan Freeman, whatever... can simply be my conscience. It's always been there, I just choose to listen to it now. Turning it over (our will and lives) has to be a conscious effort for me, which gets easier day after day. Some defects I learned through my disease, some were already there as long as I can remember and I used alcohol to fuel them.

Just doing the next right thing and being aware and in the moment keeps me grounded. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but ... well you all know the rest.