Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP THREE

our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

To every worldly and practical-minded beginner, this
Step looks hard, even impossible. No matter how much
one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and
his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks
there is? Fortunately, we who have tried it, and with equal
misgivings, can testify that anyone, anyone at all, can be-
gin to do it. We can further add that a beginning, even the
smallest, is all that is needed. Once we have placed the key
of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slight-
ly open, we find that we can always open it some more.
Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently
does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up
the key of willingness.

Maybe this all sounds mysterious and remote, some-
thing like Einstein's theory of relativity or a proposition
in nuclear physics. It isn't at all. Let's look at how practical
it actually is. Every man and woman who has joined A.A.
and intends to stick has, without realizing it, made a begin-
ning on Step Three. Isn't it true that in all matters touching
upon alcohol, each of them has decided to turn his or her
life over to the care, protection, and guidance of Alcohol-
ics Anonymous? Already a willingness has been achieved
to cast out one's own will and one's own ideas about the
alcohol problem in favor of those suggested by A.A. Any
willing newcomer feels sure A.A. is the only safe harbor
for the foundering vessel he has become. Now if this is not
turning one's will and life over to a newfound Providence,
then what is it?

But suppose that instinct still cries out, as it certainly will,