Offering the Third Step

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God

In our common recovery parlance we talk about “taking” the Third Step. It’s one of those delightful controversies we engage in that might be our recovery equivalent of debating the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. (Instead of asking, “Angels can dance?”)

You have heard it too: How do you take Step Three? Do you do it by reading the step in recovery literature? Do you take it in your heart? Do you go to the beach or a mountaintop or the bare desert and get on your knees and say the words? (I’ve done all three)

 Or, do you take this step with a sponsor—in the presence of God and another trusted human being and your own sincere self (as the wording of the Fifth Step suggests)? (I did that too.)

 Or is it a totally private matter? (On a daily basis it’s just me saying the words in front of the little altar in my bedroom.)

But what we talk about less often is how to offer the Third Step to another person. If you are a sponsor or clergy or a spiritual director—or that trusted human being—how exactly do you guide or witness or help someone to take the Third Step?

A week ago I had that opportunity. I am a sponsor and the woman I am accompanying on the steps was ready. I’m a writing teacher by day so I had created assignments for Steps One and Two—things to ponder and journal about, lists to make, and books to read. For Step Three we wrote about what we were willing to turn over and what was going to be harder to surrender but for which we were willing.

It’s always our personal lives: We want our intimate relationships to go well, and we want our dreams to be achieved: (book, baby, career, house, healing) and the biggie: how other people live their lives. Isn’t that where we get caught most often turning things over and then taking them back accompanied by, “He should,” “She should” and “They should”?

So for Step Three I knew I wanted a ritual. It’s a big moment and I also knew that in the very early days of AA the Third Step was taken publically—in a small group, sometimes in a meeting, definitely not alone. So that’s what we did.

Vincent Van Gogh

We met in my home, talked through what would be hard to surrender, and we acknowledged the paradox that Step Three is both a moment in time and a life-long process, and then we got on our knees and said the words together. 

It was powerful to offer this to another human being—powerful to say the same words that I say every morning before I leave for work, words I read aloud from a page in my meditation book, words that seem rote some days and like begging on others. 

Now, aloud and line-by-line—I could offer Step Three to another recovering person, and by doing that I offered the Third Step to myself again in a real moment in time.


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More on working the steps in long-term recovery in my book: "Out of the Woods--A Woman's Guide to Long-term Recovery" published by Central Recovery Press.

Step Three--Into the Abyss

In Step Three we turn our lives over to something that is bigger than us--something that we don’t control. For some of us that might be a pretty traditional god—an anthropomorphized “He”, and for others the Higher Power is an “it” or an idea. The central idea of the Third Step is that we surrender to this bigger being or concept, we remove our hands and we take a leap of faith.

Over the years when taking the Third Step has again become hard for me, and for me Step Three is always an “again” process, I will get out my copy of the movie “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade” starring Harrison Ford and I cue it up to watch the final twenty minutes of the film.

You may remember this film and how near the end of the movie, when Harrison Ford as “Indiana Jones” is nearly at the place of the Holy Grail he faces a wide crevasse that is impossible to jump across. The cave of the Holy Grail is on the other side of this wide, precipitous gulf and Jones has to get across to save Sean Connery, who plays Ford’s father.

Ford/Indiana stands on the edge of the great crevasse and he looks completely stricken. He looks across, and then he looks down. To step out into this vast nothingness is certain death.

And then—and this is the part that I love--he says, “Oh shit” and then he steps into pure emptiness. As Ford prepares to drop through space the invisible bridge appears under his foot.

Step Three is always inspiring after the bridge appears. But it is also typically an “Oh shit” moment just before that happens.

I need lots of reminders about the Third Step and surrender. It’s one of the reasons that I still go to meetings. I need repetition. There are some recovery insights that seem so brilliant and obvious that I’m sure, “I’ll never forget that!” Those turn out to be the very things that I have to hear –and experience--again and again.

One of the ways that I remind myself is with a little card I keep on my desk that says, “I made a Decision—not a feeling—to turn my will and my life over to God.” That helps me to remember that I don’t have to feel good when I surrender. If a good feeling is meant to be it will appear like Indiana Jones’ bridge—after I step into the void. 

Step Three is Affirmative Action

It actually says that in The "Twelve & Twelve".  It just goes to show how language and the meaning of terms can change over the years. But on page 34 it says, "Like all the remaining steps, Step Three calls for affirmative action."

Now I have read this book many times. I have my first copy still and it is underlined, dog-eared, scribbled in and I bet there are tears soaked into these pages. Always the question, "How?" How do I take the Third Step?

For so long I had this idea of Step Three being an inner action, a deep commitment, a moment when we surrender internally--maybe from a holy instance or maybe form hitting a wall of some kind--sort of a loud "Uncle!" moment. And I have had those and surrendered. But here is says, "It is only by action that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked the entry of God into our lives."

(I must point out that it is not saying we do this to get sober but rather our goal is to get God into our lives--the fair assumption is that when we do get God or HP into our lives the drinking, drugging, shopping, sexing, eating and working will work themselves out.) Hmmmmm.

So what is the action? The next nine steps have us writing, calling, meeting, making lists, setting up chairs, going to meetings, confessing, sharing, praying, meditating,  and lending a hand in many big and small ways. So what is the action of step three? We can't just think, or even feel. We have to act, and affirmatively.

I'm chewing on this step this week. Let em know your affirmative actions and I'll share mine with you.

What Other People Think...

What other people think of me is none of my business. I learned that in Alanon. I have to keep re-learning that over and over. But it makes sense. If I really practice the Third Step and if I have turned my will and my life over to God, and if I am endeavoring to do God’s will, then I will be used in ways that I don’t necessarily understand --and that others don’t either. So what they think can’t be my business.

Step Three

In Step Three we surrender. We turn our lives over to God. We take a leap of faith. Over the years when this becomes hard again—and it is an “again” process—I sometimes will watch the Harrison Ford movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Near the end of that movie Ford, as Indian Jones, has to leap into the void to cross over in search of the grail. He stands on the edge of a great crevasse and –what I love—he says “Oh shit” before he steps into what he believes is pure emptiness. And then the bridge appears.

Step Three is inspiring and uplifting—after the bridge appears. It is also “Oh shit”.