Step Three

(Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood him)

This in my opinion and experience is the simplest of steps and yet people struggle with it and complicate it to no end. This step takes the least amount of effort, out of all the steps it takes the least amount of work.

I can only give my opinion and experience with this step and share what has been revealed to me. All I have to do is want to believe in God, he will do the rest, he will bridge the gap. I am a human being and imperfect and therefore I cannot bridge the gap, only he can.

God does not expect me to be a saint, I expect me to be a saint because I think that's what is required for God to pay attention to me, it seems to be a part of the human condition.

So in the grand human tradition I throw stumbling blocks in front of myself and cut myself off from God, God does not cut me off from him. Step three gets me, I don't have to get it, all I have to do is do the reading in the big book and ask God to take care of me and show me his will and then let him....it's that simple....let him.

People stumble over the question "what is Gods will for me"? Of course in my own self centred mind I'm thinking it must be something complicated and grand. I keep it simple though, that's what I was taught to do and it works. If I had a child what would my will be for him or her? Simple...try to be a good person, don't drink and use drugs, don't hurt people, don't lie cheat and steal. If my child were to stumble and commit any one of these sins would I hate them and cut them off from me? Of course not. God is the same way I've learned, he is my parent....my heavenly parent and loves me, my job is just to want him to be in my life, he will do the rest.

Not all in my time of course, but in his own time.

Step Two

(Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity)

"Came to believe" is the key phrase here, it takes time. There is no time frame for the steps, some people take longer to work through them and that is fine. I think I always believed in a power greater than myself, I was just pissed at it.

A lot of my thinking and behaviour was insane and I realized that right off before I ever got step one. Doing the same things over and over and hoping that this time it would be different. That is insane, as well as a lot of other behaviours and thinking, hating and resenting people hoping it would hurt them, meanwhile it was like drinking poisen and hoping they would die, that's insane.

Ending up in treatment centre after treatment centre and then convincing myself that it was ok to go back out and use drugs/alcohol again....downright nutty....but it seemed perfectly logical at the time of course.

It took me time to believe that a power greater than myself (God to me) would help me to start thinking rationally. There's no rush, this step takes time like all the others, (it doesn't work if you don't get step one though,no exceptions).

Step One

(We admitted we were powerless over alcohol/addiction-that our lives had become unmanageable.)

My understanding of this step as well as the others is pretty simple,"stay away from the first drink/drug". I can accomplish nothing if I don't stay away from the first one, I can never safely drink or use drugs...period. That's what all those years of hell taught me, I give up, I will not test to see if I can have a drink....I can't.

Total abstinance is what this step means, no games, no playing around with any kind of mind altering substance. As I said in an earlier post, I always tried to stay away from the 3rd or 4rth or 20th drink or drug. The reality is that as soon as I take the first one I am done, I can't stop and to truly have step one down I had to come to this realization....that's step one in a nutshell for me.

Very few new people in the program get this at first, it's a simple step but difficult, everyone thinks they're the exception and tries again and falls on their face again, there's no way past this step but I see people try to get by it over and over again.

If you don't get this one down cold, nothing else will work.

The Difference Between Addicts And Alcoholics

Not much really, at the core level I mean. I have never known an alcoholic that could use drugs safely and I have never known an addict that could drink safely. Bill Wilson said in another grapevine article I read years ago, "Addicts and Alcoholics are cousins" One must remember that Bill's experience with drugs was limited to seditives prescribed by a doctor.

He also grew up in another era where drugs were really an evil and underground thing. Alcohol was the drug of choice in his day and socially acceptable, whereas drugs are also socially acceptable today in addition to alcohol.

The only difference between addicts and alcoholics I've seen is lifestyle. N.A. and A.A. have been at odds for years, A.A. old timers hated when people talked about drugs at A.A. meetings and basically chased the drug people out so they just started their own program called N.A. based on the same principles and 12 steps as A.A.

An addiction is an addiction, whether your choice of drug is alcohol or coke or pills, doesn't matter, we all go to the same place in the end, jails, institutions, death.

In the future, my lifetime maybe, the two programs will merge, addicts and alcoholics will finally realize they are one and the same.

Depression In Recovery

I've suffered from depression for years in and out of recovery, I didn't know what it was though. I just thought I was some kind of loser who would never get things right, I didn't know I was a human being and would never get everything right.

I read an article in an A.A. grapevine once where Bill Wilson said he was in a depression for 15 years, I think it was the first 15 years of his sobriety, I can't remember but I'm sure that's what it was.

Depression is a fact of life for a lot of us addicts/alcoholics, mine comes and goes, this time I've been in one for a couple years. I've learned to live with it though and I trudge on in life almost never satisfied with where I'm at but getting better none the less.

I've thought about going on medication for it and I might eventually go that route, I don't know at this point. I see some people in early recovery go that route and I think it's a huge mistake, I mean their brain chemistry is already screwed up and then they go on medication and they just get worse and wonder why.

I'm kind of scared to go that route just because I'm afraid of the effect medication will have on me....me being such a control freak as it is. Anyway, I don't know, that's just where I'm at right now.

The mystery that is God

God is a complete mystery to me and I personally think that's just the way it's supposed to be. Anybody purporting to "know" what God is and understand God is a little wacko in my opinion. I have never met anyone with a direct pipeline to God, though I have met a few that claimed a direct pipeline to God.

I watch some religious programs and like some of them and blow others off as nonsense. God as I understand "him" or "her" or "it" is free and open to anyone and everyone that seeks God. I personally believe God is a "him" and that's just my belief, I don't care or worry what others believe, it's personal and everyone can believe what they want.

One thing I have learned about God is that I don't actually have to "believe", I just have to want to "believe"and he will do the rest. Weird but it works.

God is not about rules, mankind is about rules. Mankind has made lot's of rules for everyone to follow. Isn't it funny though how those that make the rules in most cases don't follow the rules, rules are always for others and not for those that make them.

Rules are meant to be broken, perfection is only an ideal I can strive for but never attain, by the same token I must forgive others for falling short, I do it all the time.

I can be a very unforgiving person and hold a grudge for a long time but at the same time be totally bewildered when someone does the same to me....such is the human condition....locked in my own little world where I am the centre and the king....it's lonely at the top.

I am getting better now though, I'll always fall short and I know that, but I don't hate like I used to or stay angry as long....progress rather than perfection.

I just try to forgive, my God forgives me and it's something I will work on the rest of my life.

Recovery From Addiction

I struggled for so many years, falling on my face again and again. I could just never stay straight and sober. And of course I blamed everyone and everything else for it. Finally in the end, and I do mean the end because I was so sick physically and yellow "from my liver almost blowing up" I finally listened to those that knew what they were doing.....the people who had successfully sobered up.

I was 30 years old at the time and took my sobriety serious this time, I did what they told me and I prayed like I'd never prayed before.

Here I am almost nine years later and still clean and sober. My nine years is on may the 5th and I can hardly believe how the time has passed by so quickly....but it has.

My program is simple, just like I was taught. I stay away from the first drug or drink, not the second or third one because I've come to realize that as an addictive person it is imposssible for me to stay away once I've taken the first one. This so simple that you almost have to be a child to get it.

I never entertain the thought of using a drug or a drink. When I was younger I always thought I had more time, "I'll straighten out next week or next year" was my motto untill the day came when I couldn't, even though I really wanted too.

This is the game I see so many people play, everyone thinks their the exception, it will be different for them....good luck....I know people who have died thinking like that and I was almost one of them....no thanks.

Everyone I sobered up around, the new ones like me......are all back out there and a couple are in jail and a couple are dead with the exception of myself and two other people.

God gave me a gift, he gave me my choice back, I choose not to pick up the first one and I've been sober ever since.

I see a lot of new people in the program of A.A. and N.A. get too much into their deep seated emotional issues in early recovery.....this in my opinion is a grave error and I discourage people from doing that.

Let me explain. Early recovery is about staying sober, that's it, simple, those issues will continue to be there down the road I assure you, you don't need to fill your plate to overflowing in the beginning....even the first two years.

Being overwhelmed by these issues sends most people right back out.....and for what.....now they may die and never deal with them. A lot of pop psychology has seeped into the program over the years and it has no place there....none. I've even heard Dr Phil quoted at a meeting.

Sure professionals have a place in our society, but they do not have a place in A.A. or N.A. That place is for addicts and alcoholics to help each other, Dr's have never been able to sober us up.....only our own kind has been able to help us.

Save the pop psychology stuff for outside the meeting. Being raised in a bad home is not what made me drink or do drugs, neither did sexual abuse or abuse in general.....I have a desease....I believe in the desease concept because I have seen the proof of it in my own life. There is something physiologically different about me then the average Joe that can drink normally.

My issue is addiction and alcoholism....not my abuse.