Step Three for Fashionistas

Ok, as we all know Step Three says: ‘Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” And all of us who have been around a bit know that even though this says “made a decision” it really is a process of many decisions made over a period of time.

In early recovery we may have a ceremony or make a formal ritual and we “take” Step Three with our sponsor. That is a brave act of considerable intimacy. Later, often when life is hard, we take it again. Spiritual maturity teaches us that sooner or later we’re gonna turn it over so why not sooner rather than later. I like to say that instead of waiting to hit the wall I like to take Step Three when I see the wall coming.

So it’s a process and our spiritual growth deepens with each layer—each area of our lives that we eventually surrender. I have taken a Third Step on relationships, money, work, jobs and even cars. I learned this great phrase form a spiritual teacher: “Give yourself to God. Surrender your whole being to be used for His righteous purposes.” 

Note: It says your whole being.

This year I had a revelation about a new layer of surrender in front of me: What I look like.

I have always cared about my appearance. Clothes, face and hair. Superficial? Not very spiritual? Maybe, but in early recovery  when I was getting very very spiritual and perfect, and when I had taken that first ceremonial Third Step, I decided that I was too spiritual for hair color, make up and such, yes superficial things. 

Luckily I had a sponsor who was tall and blonde and stylish –and very sober--and she said, “God does not want you to wear sackcloth and ashes, God loves you, now go get some highlights back in your hair.” Turns out I was just using the “I’m too spiritual for makeup” as another way to impress and people please and try to convince God to like me. 

My sponsor said, “Cut that out, this is about attraction rather than promotion. Do you want new women to think they have to look awful?”

But flash forward 25 years and I am daily surrendering work and my artwork and my marriage and money and most aspects of my life. But also on most days I am agonizing over my hair. I still can’t find that gamine cut that leave me looking pretty and smart all at the same time, kind of like Susan Sontag in a bikini. 

So it hit me: I have turned over everything else so why not how I look? Does that seem weird? I thought so too. But it was just a wild enough idea and worth a try. So I’m doing it. Like most other surrenders there are two parts: God’s and mine. Like getting a new job I have to ask for God’s will but then I still have to go and rewrite my resume. In this case I have to do a modest amount of self-care and then let go of the rest.

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.