“Step Nine: Justice”

(This blog is ninth in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Justice is about wrongs made right. We've been wrong; we've caused harm. So we go to those people we listed on our eighth step and try to achieve some measure of Justice. We do what we can to right the wrongs. Wherever possible, we own our mistakes and admit the things we've done to those we did them to.

My sponsor likes to say that the words "I'm sorry" have no place in a ninth step amends. Making amends is an act of apology. If we weren't sorry for what we've done, we wouldn't be making the amends in the first place. Sometimes it's a journey to get to the head space where we are truly sorry for our actions. We need to practice compassion, put ourselves in the shoes of those we've harmed and see our actions through their eyes. After we've admitted our part, after we've owned up to what we've done, we offer to do whatever we can to make it right.

The reaction we get can be positive or negative; it doesn't matter. Whatever the response, we can accept it. Whatever it is that's asked of us to do, we can do it. When we're done, we get to let go and know--without a doubt--that we have done everything we could to right the wrongs, to achieve Justice. Our side of the street is now clean.

I've made my share of amends. Sometimes the reactions were very positive, sometimes not. On one occasion I was told that I was already forgiven a long time ago. On another, my amends was 'accepted' but the other person wasn't interested in my making anything right. He chose to hold on to his own grudge, and that's fine. I can rest easy, knowing I did what I could. I owned my part and I made the offer. We have no control over others, just ourselves.

Sometimes people have died and we don't have the opportunity to make amends. I have a friend in the program who shares about making amends at her stepfather's grave. Sometimes the person is still alive, but our amends can't be made directly. The step talks about this. We don't make amends if we would cause more harm. There are many ways to make amends. Emails or letters can be sent. Sometimes, a letter is written and not sent. Sometimes we do a living amends--instead of contacting someone or writing a letter, we make a permanent change in our behavior. One of my amends was to a married couple; I'd had an affair with the wife. It would have caused major harm to her and her marriage for me to approach her. I could have written a letter and not sent it, but sponsor suggested a living amends instead: no more getting involved with married women. This is an amends I'm proud to say I continue with to this day. It's been helpful to me, too, in terms less drama and chaos in my life.

Ultimately, this is why we make amends--to benefit our own Recovery. We don't make them to feel better about ourselves, or to purge ourselves of guilt. It's about Justice, writing wrongs, cleaning up our side of the street. The response we get can be freeing, but the act itself is freeing. If we're thorough, then we have truly made the change to becoming new people. We don't tell people we're sorry, we show it by admitting we were wrong.

“Feeling Better”

(‘Thoughts On The Steps’ will return...)

I’ve got a line from an old song going through my head today. “Feelings... nothing more than feelings...” We read it in the literature, we hear it from our sponsors and from others in the rooms: they’re just feelings; they won’t kill you. I’m doing my best to remember this today.

I had a good conversation with my sponsor over the weekend. We talk about everything. He’s awesome about checking in with me on all aspects of my life, asking about the little things as well as how it’s all going on the whole. Something I struggle with a lot is the relationships issue. Heh. What addict/alcoholic doesn’t? Talking to my sponsor, I confessed that I’d been beating up on myself about it--again.

He had a lot of good things to say, not the least of which was to remind me that we strive for progress, not perfection. “What?” he said with his loving sarcasm, “you mean to tell me you’re still having trouble with this issue that you’ve struggled with your whole life?!” I laughed and felt a little better. Giving myself a break is still hard sometimes, especially when it comes to this. I still get wrapped up in the ‘shoulds’--I should feel this way, I shouldn’t feel that way.

We are emotional beings, us humans. I learned to stuff mine way down. Thanks to my Recovery, I’m learning to not bury them so much, how to be better in touch with what’s going on inside, and when it’s important to communicate what I’m going through to other people and how to do that effectively. I’m not perfect at it, by any means, but it is much better than it used to be.

On the way to a meeting last week, I had a friend with me. She mentioned that those of us with this disease tend to be very sensitive. I laughed and cracked a joke, “that’s what my ex-wife used to say!” Ah, humor. It’s funny ‘cause it’s true. I am aware that I can be super-sensitive, and that we addicts are like this. I wonder if it’s something about that heightened state, the damage the disease has done to our reptilian brain and the fight-or-flight reflex. Anyone who’s ever tried to talk to an active addict about their addiction knows they are sensitive on that subject especially. How many wild, overblown reactions am I guilty of? Fewer and fewer these days, thank God.

I was a sensitive, emotional child, prone to tears at the drop of a hat. One of the reasons I used was I needed the relief I got from being numb. But it wasn’t until I got sober and started working the program that I truly began to understand the ‘why’ behind all my intense emotional reactions. I had years worth of unresolved issues piled up like so much garbage in a house that hadn’t ever been cleaned.

Working the steps has done wonders for helping me to clean house and given me a way of living to help keep the garbage from piling up so high. A good therapist has helped me to better understand why things got so dirty, why some areas need more frequent cleaning and that, yes, the house is still going to get dirty and maybe just maybe some things will never be sparkling clean no matter how hard I scrub. I have wounds from my life that have healed, but scars remain. And it is Recovery, once again, that helps me to accept that those scars are there; some parts of the house will never be pristine, and that’s okay. So I do what I can, leave the rest to God, and try to accept What Is.

Bringing things back from the metaphor-land I’ve stumbled into...

That relationships are still such an issue frustrates me. So much else is working so well! It bugs me that I take longer than I think I should to get over someone, that I haven’t managed to attract the ‘perfect’ woman into my life, that I’m not living happily ever after. Ha! My disease is all over this. Perfectionism? Check. Wishing things were different instead of accepting life on life’s terms? Check. Should? Check.

Thank God for the program. Thank God I have a way to deal with this instead of spinning and obsessing and being miserable. Give myself a break--chill out, Zach. Relationships are hard for everyone, especially folks like us. Acceptance: how I feel is how I feel. They’re just feelings. No matter how intense, they won’t kill me. Gratitude: I’m sober today, miracle #1 of many.

So what if life isn’t perfect, it’s never going to be. Has there been progress? Yes--and lots of it. And as long as I stay sober, keep working the program of Recovery, there’s sure to be more.

“Step Eight: Love”

(This blog is eighth in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

We hurt people. Period. You can’t be an addict/alcoholic without hurting others. Actually, now that I write that, I find myself thinking that you can’t be a human being without hurting others. It’s a part of life; it happens. Those of us with the disease might have more extreme examples of it, or we might not. Not all of us are murders, rapists, and thieves. In fact, most of us, the harm we have caused isn’t nearly so dramatic. But that isn’t the point.

Step eight parallels the fourth step in a lot of ways. It’s a step where we make a list. This time, instead of listing out our resentments, we’re listing out specific things we’ve done wrong. Then we ask for our higher power’s help again, practice more Willingness, until we find the strength within ourselves to own up to what we’ve done.

There are lots of different types of Love. Romantic love, love between friends, between family. Step Eight calls on us to practice a type of brotherly Love--a term I hate, by the way, because of its male-specificity--which is a love of your fellow human being. It challenges us, too, to better love ourselves. We have to decide that we are worth it, that our commitment to the program and the rewards it brings are worth the struggle of continuing on and deepening our commitment.

In the Big Book of AA, the Promises come after working the ninth step. That’s not a coincidence. But in order to get to those promises, we have to work step eight first. At this point in the program, we’re practicing all the principles we’ve been learning at once. It takes everything the first seven steps have taught us to do the eighth.

A lot of us don’t want to do the eight step. Some of us block out the ninth, pretending that it doesn’t exist, just in order to make the list required of us in our eighth. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I try to remember something along the lines of what I tell myself in the fourth step: I’ve already done this; just write it down. I’ve already caused this harm, done these wrongs, just write them down.

We bring ourselves further into alignment with who we really are. We deepen our commitment to Honesty and Integrity, and in so doing we deepen our relationship with our higher power. We continue to look at ourselves, own up to who we have been. It can be so difficult. It takes a LOT of Willingness and a LOT of Humility. But in the end, it’s just one more step towards who we really are as we have been created.

“Step Seven: Humility”

(This blog is seventh in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Seven: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Just as the fourth step leads to the fifth, the sixth leads directly to Step Seven. Working the seventh step isn't the ultimate lesson in Humility, but it is a great way to practice it. Many in recovery end up memorizing the seventh step prayer. I tend to paraphrase and say my own version: dear God, I'm fucked up and I can't fix it by myself. Whatever version of the prayer you use, it's a prayer asking for help.

In the first three steps, we faced up to some important truths: we admitted our powerlessness over our disease and asked for help in getting clean and sober. In steps four, five, and six, we expanded our focus. We looked at ourselves and the way we've dealt with life. Now, in Step Seven, we ask for help again to make even greater change. We ask to be transformed. We seek to truly leave behind the people we used to be and live life differently.

As people who suffer from the disease, we are often self-centered. We can be raging egomaniacs, or deeply insecure, or both at the same time. In either case, we are obsessed with ourselves, our view of the world. We need practice in accepting life on life’s terms--taking the world as it is instead of how we would have it be. We get frustrated because others don’t do the things we think they should, or say the things we wished they would. We are constantly struggling against a world that is not the way we would have it be.

Practicing Humility helps us to remember that nowhere is it written that reality must comply with our wishes. This is not our world, it is God’s world. We did not create it. 99.997% of the forces at work in it are beyond our control and out of our sphere of influence. We are just a single character in a story with a cast of trillions. Try standing out under a clear sky at night. Count the stars. There’s something about us humans. We experience our consciousness, our own lives, so intensely it’s difficult to remember that there is much, much more out there besides ourselves.

We all have character defects. We all have our issues, things we’re working on, trying to improve on. It’s the recognition of those defects that is important, the fact that we try to improve them that is key. We acknowledge the harm they cause us, the harm they cause others, and we make a decision to let go and stop doing harm.

We need the help of our higher power to change. Being in meetings can help us to learn how others have dealt with similar situations. We can take that knowledge and apply it to our own life. But we don’t live in the rooms. Out there, out in the world, we don’t have a group of fellow addicts or alcoholics to lean on. In the moment, as we live our lives, we can’t turn to the group and ask for help or advice. But we can turn to our higher power. That force greater than ourselves is always with us, always available for guidance and support. All that is required of us is to have the Humility to ask for help.

“Step Six: Willingness”

(This blog is sixth in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Step Six is about taking our spiritual growth ever-deeper. We’ve taken inventory, had a long, hard look at ourselves--who we are and how we’ve lived. If we’ve done a thorough job, we can see the patterns of our lives, how they’ve caused suffering for us and for other people. We just might even have made enough spiritual progress to see the need for greater change.

The ways in which we’ve lived our lives don’t work anymore (if they ever really did). The most blatant example of this is our addiction, but a thorough working of the fourth step helps us to see that our disease is about much, much more than our substances. The disease is about more than what we are hooked on, be it alcohol, marijuana, speed, crack, heroin, or coke. The subtler parts of the disease are what truly show when we put down. It’s in the way we think, the words we use to speak, the actions and inactions we do and don’t take.

Doctors and scientists tell us that the disease of addiction is a brain disease. It affects the reptilian part of our brain, the part that governs our instincts, skewing them, sending those once-healthy ways of dealing with the world totally awry. Program literature teaches us the same things, that we have natural instincts that the disease has perverted, causing us to try and fulfill those needs in extremely unhealthy ways. Our normal human instincts are good, useful, important, but we have been using them in all the wrong ways.

The list of possible character defects is too long for me to go into in this entry. I could write an entire blog on the subject and never run out of material. So what is a defect? How can we tell which of our personal qualities are objectionable? How do we know what it is that needs changing? The answer is actually pretty simple: they are the traits which prevent us from getting closer to our higher power. Getting loaded prevents us from making conscious contact with God; our character defects do much the same thing. When we act on them, we pull away from the spiritual instead of moving towards it. They are the ways in which we harm others and ourselves; the ways we assert our will on reality instead of letting God be in charge.

We can do our part, work to try to change the things we can, but we need the help of a power greater than ourselves to change the things we can't. We want to lead new lives, live differently, more spiritually. We do this by taking the tools the program has taught us and applying them in new ways. It takes all the principles we have learned so far--Honesty, Hope, Faith, Courage, and Integrity. It calls on us to practice another principle that we’ve been using all along: Willingness. Now, we use that principle in a far more specific and determined way: We have been willing to get clean and sober; we have been willing to work the steps we have worked so far. But how deep does our Willingness go? Are we truly willing to change our lives? Are we truly willing to be changed and become new and different people? Are we truly willing to live the spiritual life? These are the questions we ask through working the sixth step. We learn just how deep our willingness goes and then we push it even further.

To become changed, we must stop practicing our character defects. We seek to restore our instincts to their natural, healthy functions. We are like ancient navigators at sea, looking at the night sky. We read the stars, see where we have been and how we got to where we are. With Willingness, we can take our hands off the steering wheel of our lives and allow ourselves be guided.

“Step Five: Integrity”

(This blog is fifth in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Writing out all the information in a fourth step is hard enough. Owning up to it before God? Even harder. Admitting it to someone else? DAMN difficult.

I've read in some 12-step literature that some people take this step not with their sponsor, but with a trusted advisor, or even a complete stranger. I really don't recommend that last option. I tend to frown on reading it to a religious leader or other 'spiritual advisor', too. I believe the best thing to do is to read the fourth step to your sponsor. To me, that's a big part of what Step Five is about.

We carry all kinds of unresolved issues around with us. A lot of it we don't talk about because we don't know what others might think about us, or because we're afraid of what they will think. Some of it we're ashamed of. Some of it, we're ashamed that we haven't been able to let go of. Some of it we want to hold on tight to, like secrets we swore we'd take to the grave.

It's the deep, dark secrets of our lives that poison our souls. It's the myriad of unsolved puzzles, hidden hurts, and angry reactions that we can't seem to let go of that keep us from moving forward and prevent us from healing.

Something I like a lot about 12-step groups is that there is something ancient and timeless about a group of people sitting together, talking, sharing the wisdom of their lives. I think from time to time that it feels a little like sitting around a campfire. People share about their problems. Others listen and share about how they dealt with similar struggles. We find peace and comfort in learning we're not alone.

Doing the fifth step is a lot like that, but on a much deeper, more personal level. Certain things are not appropriate to share at the group level. But we do need to share them, we do need to let them out, bring those dark parts of our past out into the light. Only then will they lose the power they have over us.

I've heard it shared in meetings and said so myself, a lot of the power of the fifth step comes from being understood. The things I was most afraid to talk about, when I shared them with my sponsor, he just simply replied, "yep, me too. What's next?" Not rudely, not disdainfully, but with complete understanding. He'd been there; he'd done that. He'd felt how I did. The feeling I got from meetings of not being alone, I felt it many times more deeply.

So where does Integrity fit into all of this? When we do the fifth step (preferably with our sponsor) we are presenting the first truly, most fully honest picture of ourselves as we really are.

Often times, in working the fourth step, we see the patterns of our lives and where our actions, inactions, and choices led us. Doing the fifth step is about much more than reading our lists to our sponsor. Our sponsor can help us see other patterns, give us an impartial, understanding perspective on what we’ve written down. They're like a pair of glasses that help us to see things more clearly, help us to focus on the things we don't want to look at. And it helps them to know us, know our struggles, which puts them in a better position to help us as we continue moving forward with the rest of the steps, trying to change our lives and live differently.

It's important to do the fifth step with a sponsor. It's important, too, to go back and look at it ourselves, read it to ourselves again and not shy away from the truths we've revealed about who we've been. It's really important to acknowledge this new knowledge before God. That's three instances of very specifically practicing Integrity. And with that practice, we've begun acquiring a new skill--one of being who we choose to be instead of what the disease makes us.

An addict is what I am. It is not who I am. We can choose. With Recovery, we are given the option to live our lives differently, be people of Integrity, if we want to.

“Loneliness”

(‘Thoughts On The Steps’ will return after this brief word from our author...)

It’s Superbowl Sunday and I must confess I’m not much of a football fan. If I’m in a bad mood, I’ll go on and on about how professional sports are nothing more than avenues for advertising beer and that football in particular is the worst offender because of its inherent violence. But like I said, that’s just when I’m in a bad mood and today is not one of those days. I’m actually feeling very good, even a little amused.

I’m not watching the game, but I did find a desire in myself to get out and have a walk. Strolling through my neighborhood, here, I could hear cheers floating out the doors and windows of the houses. When I reached a commercial street, I found it mostly deserted, with the occasional group of people clustered around a bar that happened to have the game on. Eventually, I found my way to one of my local coffee shop haunts. I ordered some tea, had a seat out front, and felt at peace.

My addict brain doesn’t rest peacefully for long. This is not to say I’m spinning or obsessing—far from it. I just find myself, more often than not... thinking. The absence of people on the sidewalks, not being a part of ‘the big game’, a comment yesterday from a sponsee about not fitting in, lingering disappointment about a relationship that wasn’t possible; all of these things sort of swirled around my mind until I found myself focusing on a word: loneliness.

It’s not what I’m feeling right now. At least, I’m not feeling it nearly as strong as I have at so many other times in my life. There’s just a touch of it, like a pinch of spice, a small flavoring to my peaceful mood. And I felt the desire to whip out my phone and blog a little honesty: it’s been a lonely life.

This is not a complaint, just a confession. I’ve had friends, even close friends. They come and go. I have the people in my meetings and my sponsees. I’ve had lovers, girlfriends, wives. I’m more at peace today than I ever have been with myself, my life, and the world around me.

But I’ve gotta tell you, in all honesty, it’s been a lonely life.

There’s no judgment here. I’m grateful to be in a headspace these days where I can be alone and not feel the overwhelming sense of loneliness. I’d even go so far as to say that I’ve accepted the loneliness I do feel as part of my life, a feeling like any other. Some people lead lonely lives, others don’t. It’s a category. Check this box, right here next to hair color and height.

I used to obsess a lot over how different I am from other people. I tried for a while to convince myself that, no, I’m not, and in a certain way that’s true. There are things about me that I can look at as equalizers: that I am human, that I suffer from the disease, that my inner desire responds when I see an attractive woman. But I am conscious, too, of my own uniqueness. That I can hold all of this in my mind now and be okay with it is a reassuring sign of my ever growing self-acceptance.

Still... just for the record, I really want to let this out: it’s been a lonely life.

No particular reason. No cry for help, no pleas for support. I’m actually doing very well, thank you. But this is my blog, my space to write about my thoughts and my feelings. As we say in meetings, “it’s my five minutes.” So whether you follow this blog or stumbled on this entry, I just want to level with you, toss as much bullshit out the door as I can, and let you know the truth about this little piece of me.

And you know what else? It’s alright. I’m okay. I just wanted to share.

“Step Four: Courage”

(This blog is fourth in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Step four--the 'big one'. It separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls. Completing this step says a lot about someone's dedication to their Recovery. I don't know if any statistics exist, but think about it like this: most people who go to a meeting don't ever go back; of those who do go back, most don't get sponsors; of those who get sponsors, a lot of them don't actually work the steps; of those who actually do work steps, most don't make it through Step Four.

Why is this step such a big deal? What is the difficulty? All it does is ask us to take a long, hard look at ourselves and admit to our own part in all those situations where other people have pissed us off. All it does is teach us to own our own shit and stop blaming other people. What's so hard about that? Besides... everything? It's easy for us to point a finger at someone else, point out what they're doing wrong, how they hurt us, etc. Pointing the finger at ourselves is DAMN difficult. Admitting that we might be partly to blame for situations where others have hurt us? Really. Hard. It takes a lot of inner strength to own up to what we've done (or haven't done). It takes a lot of Courage.

We play a role in every aspect of our lives. Every scenario, every scene. I think human beings in general, but those of us with this disease in particular, have a tough time admitting we may have been wrong. We have a tough time owning up to what we've done--especially when we can only see what the other person has done to wrong us so badly. Part of the genuis behind this step is that it asks us to look at our resentments. What are those things we've been holding on to, those things we can't let go of? We can't make anyone else own their part, we can only own ours. By admitting to ourselves what we have done, where we went wrong, and what we can do differently in the future, we can let go of all these things that are poisoning our souls.

Sometimes the letting go happens by realizing that we weren't to blame for something that happened. Sometimes we've been holding on to things because we thought we were at fault, and we learn to accept that they weren't. Those who were molested as children, for example. Or all the times we thought we 'should have known better'. We didn't. In one, fell swoop, we learn to take responsibility for what we did (or didn't) do and at the same time allow responsibility for others' to rest with them. We learn to draw that line. We learn where our side of the street ends and where the other begins. We start taking responsibility for ourselves and stop taking responsibility for things that aren't ours. We take serious action towards putting the past to rest, letting go of the things we can't change.

It's been said many times: the fourth step isn't a thinking exercise, it's a writing exercise. Who are you pissed off at? Write it down. What did you do? Write it down. Who'd you sleep with? Write it down. You already feel the feelings, you've already done what you did; just write it all down. Once we've got it all on paper, we step back and take another look. Almost by magic, the patterns of our lives start jumping out at us. We see, time and time again, how we handle things, situations, people, and where the way we have done life has led us. We have a blueprint of ourselves and how we conduct our affairs. From this, we pivot. We see these things we have done and, with that knowledge, now have the opportunity to do things differently.

Changing takes Courage, too. For a lot of us, once we see where our previous actions have led, it becomes easier to change. We don't want to go there anymore. We want to do things differently and get different results. The Courage we learn in this step is two-fold: it takes Courage to look at ourselves honestly; it takes Courage to change and do things differently. Through making the inventory, we learn the Courage needed to make the changes that are necessary.

“Step Three: Faith”

(This blog is third in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

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

Turn it over.

That's what this step is all about: turning it over to God. We make a decision to stop trying to exert our will on reality and allow reality to be as it is. We've come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can help us. We've admitted that we can't do it ourselves. So we make a decision to let go and let God take care of it. We decide to let the power greater than us run the show, to let the chips falls where they may. Whatever will be will be. We let go.

Letting go is an action--one of Faith. We don't know what will happen, we don't know how things will turn out. We let go anyway. Instead of trying to make things happen the way we want them to, instead to trying to assert our will and our designs on life, we decide to let go and leave it up to God. We might even be so spiritually advanced that we make the connection between all three first steps: we can't do it, our higher power can, and so we let it.

This can be one of the most difficult steps to take. Those who don't have much experience with the spiritual (and let's face it, most of us who walk into the rooms of 12-step recovery don't), don't have a lot of practice in relying on it. That's what this step does--it gives us the opportunity to practice having Faith, using it, relying on it. Instead of relying on ourselves, something we've admitted does not work so well, we decide instead to rely on the power of something greater than ourselves.

They key here (I think) is that the step talks about God as we understand God. The power greater than yourself doesn't have to be Jesus, or the Christian God, or any figure from any particular religion at all for that matter. It's about your own personal understanding of what that higher power is like, what it means to you, your relationship with it. I refer to my higher power as the Infinite All. That's my understanding of it; each of us is going to understand it a little differently. Sometimes a lot differently.

If we are only at the beginning of our journey to understanding the power greater than ourselves, then this step is all the more difficult. How can we turn our will and our lives over to the care of something we're not sure we believe in, something we’re not even really sure what it is?! The less experience we have with the spiritual, the greater an act of Faith it is to take this step.

Some people feel they could take this step much easier if they had concrete proof that it will 'work'. The short answer to that is to look around at all the other people who have chosen to trust in the God of their understanding and see what Faith has done for them. Personally, I think not fully understanding, not knowing for certain IS the point of this step. It is because we really don't know what will happen that makes this a true act of Faith. If we know what's going to happen, we're not really acting out of Faith. It doesn't take much Faith to believe the lights will come on if we flip the lightswitch.

Faith works a bit backwards from our normal rational thought process. In matters of Faith, we do the action first and then we see the results, not the other way around. This is what makes it such a powerful experience. We close our eyes, step out over a precipice, and have Faith that everything will be alright. We trust in the power greater than ourselves to take care of us. We do our part and leave the rest up to God.