Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP THREE

dependence was their chief source of strength.

So how, exactly, can the willing person continue to turn
his will and his life over to the Higher Power? He made a
beginning, we have seen, when he commenced to rely upon
A.A. for the solution of his alcohol problem. By now,
though, the chances are that he has become convinced that
he has more problems than alcohol, and that some of these
refuse to be solved by all the sheer personal determination
and courage he can muster. They simply will not budge;
they make him desperately unhappy and threaten his new-
found sobriety. Our friend is still victimized by remorse and
guilt when he thinks of yesterday. Bitterness still overpow-
ers him when he broods upon those he still envies or hates.
His financial insecurity worries him sick, and panic takes
over when he thinks of all the bridges to safety that alcohol
burned behind him. And how shall he ever straighten out
that awful jam that cost him the affection of his family and
separated him from them? His lone courage and unaided
will cannot do it. Surely he must now depend upon Some-
body or Something else.

At first that "somebody" is likely to be his closest A.A.
friend. He relies upon the assurance that his many trou-
bles, now made more acute because he cannot use alcohol
to kill the pain, can be solved, too. Of course the sponsor
points out that our friend's life is still unmanageable even
though he is sober, that after all, only a bare start on A.A.'s
program has been made. More sobriety brought about by
the admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few
meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far
cry from permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life.