Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP THREE

enough under its weight to be willing to look for some-
thing better. So it is by circumstance rather than by any
virtue that we have been driven to A.A., have admitted de-
feat, have acquired the rudiments of faith, and now want
to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a
Higher Power.

We realize that the word "dependence" is as distasteful
to many psychiatrists and psychologists as it is to alcohol-
ics. Like our professional friends, we, too, are aware that
there are wrong forms of dependence. We have experienced
many of them. No adult man or woman, for example,
should be in too much emotional dependence upon a par-
ent. They should have been weaned long before, and if they
have not been, they should wake up to the fact. This very
form of faulty dependence has caused many a rebellious
alcoholic to conclude that dependence of any sort must
be intolerably damaging. But dependence upon an A.A.
group or upon a Higher Power hasn't produced any baleful
results.

When World War II broke out, this spiritual principle
had its first major test. A.A.'s entered the services and were
scattered all over the world. Would they be able to take
discipline, stand up under fire, and endure the monotony
and misery of war? Would the kind of dependence they
had learned in A.A. carry them through? Well, it did. They
had even fewer alcoholic lapses or emotional binges than
A.A.'s safe at home did. They were just as capable of en-
durance and valor as any other soldiers. Whether in Alas-
ka or on the Salerno beachhead, their dependence upon a
Higher Power worked. And far from being a weakness, this