Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP THREE

"Yes, respecting alcohol, I guess I have to be dependent upon
A.A., but in all other matters I must still maintain my indepen-
dence. Nothing is going to turn me into a nonentity. If I keep
on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or
Somebody else, what will become of me? I'll look like the hole
in the doughnut." This, of course, is the process by which in-
stinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate
spiritual development. The trouble is that this kind of thinking
takes no real account of the facts. And the facts seem to be
these: The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher
Power, the more independent we actually are. Therefore depen-
dence, as A.A. practices it, is really a means of gaining true
independence of the spirit.

Let's examine for a moment this idea of dependence at
the level of everyday living. In this area it is startling to dis-
cover how dependent we really are, and how unconscious
of that dependence. Every modern house has electric wir-
ing carrying power and light to its interior. We are delight-
ed with this dependence; our main hope is that nothing
will ever cut off the supply of current. By so accepting our
dependence upon this marvel of science, we find ourselves
more independent personally. Not only are we more inde-
pendent, we are even more comfortable and secure. Power
flows just where it is needed. Silently and surely, electric-
ity, that strange energy so few people understand, meets
our simplest daily needs, and our most desperate ones, too.
Ask the polio sufferer confined to an iron lung who de-
pends with complete trust upon a motor to keep the breath
of life in him.

But the moment our mental or emotional independence