Once alone and full of self-pity, she made a decision to let Step Three introduce her to a partner for life
When I came into AA, my will was pretty much dead. I didn’t want to quit drinking and definitely didn’t want to be an alcoholic, but that was where I fit, on the bottom rungs. On the outside, I was snarling, arrogant and sarcastic, but it was all bluster. I had little idea of will and even less of character. I barely had the will to live.
When I was 90 days sober, I banged my head against the wall at my AA meeting in New York City. I was so disappointed. Nothing had changed. Why had God done this to me? Later my sponsor took me to coffee at a place on West 72nd Street and, on the excuse of getting a cigarette, I went outside and walked into traffic. I said, “God if you want me to live, I will, but I don’t know why.” As I stood in the middle of the street, somewhere inside I became aware that I really didn’t want to die. That was probably my first true Third Step, I thought. I went back inside, not jumping for joy but changed.
In my first three years of sobriety, I shook a lot. In my first six years of sobriety, I was depressed. Then one weekend, I fell into a black hole and felt like I couldn’t get out. I went from phone booth to phone booth, calling AA friends until someone was home. I got help. I sat with my AA friends.
Over time I realized that I had been living a life based on a belief that I was going to be a movie star. Nothing mattered, nothing was good enough. Luckily, God and AA got me through it, and I started living my real life. “Build with me and do with me as thou wilt,” our Third Step Prayer says. The bondage of self for me was a lot about self-pity. As I saw it, I was a victim of my parents, of society, of boyfriends. God and AA showed me that self-pity was nothing to be ashamed of. I had to face it and turn it over.
When I was a kid, I spent lots of time alone. I trusted no one and very few people liked me. My parents told me that I was special, but the other kids were not impressed by “special” me. I became defensive and fearful. My parents thought the teachers were not smart enough to teach me and so I was an arrogant little snot in classes or the teacher’s pet. I was very unpopular and decided that my parents were wrong. I wasn’t special, so I became especially bad.
By the time I was a teenager and started drinking, the rebellious alcoholic in me was in full swing. I never really progressed past there. I was needy, angry, never self-supporting and I expected someone to clean up my messes. The “bondage of self” was choking the life out of me, and yet our Third Step Prayer gave me such hope. The prayer talked about freedom and victory, and although I could see no reason why I deserved these things, I could understand that God would want me to be a witness of God’s good work. Looking back, I knew that I could not accomplish freedom with my unaided will. I needed God. God became my best friend.
First of all, I realized God was not a person, so I was able to trust him/her/it or whatever. I went through stages where God was the wind or an eagle or even a cow. Now the God of my understanding is a force—a force for good in the world that’s stronger than any other force. I pray and meditate every morning. In AA, I have studied Zen Buddhism and been to seminars with the Dalai Lama. For a while I was a meditation workshop leader.
In the “Twelve and Twelve,” our cofounder Bill writes about continuous, persistent affirmative action on the Third Step and the rest of the Steps as being the way to realize serenity, courage and wisdom. In my life today, I’m on the lookout for “decisions based on self” that place me in the position to be hurt.
These words from the Big Book about God sum up the Third Step for me: “We had a new employer, he provided what we needed … more and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life … as we discovered that we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear … we were reborn.”
Every day we can be reborn and that’s my salvation. I no longer want to die. I’m glad to be alive in the world and in the program with my fellows. What a miracle.