Step 3: Made a Decision

Step 3 reads: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." Notice what it asks for: a decision, not a lifetime of perfect surrender delivered in advance. In Step 1 we admitted we were beaten. In Step 2 we came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us. In Step 3 we decide to let that Power go to work. Page 60 sets the stage with three plain convictions: that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism, and "That God could and would if He were sought." Convinced of those three things, we were at Step 3 (page 60).

The phrase as we understood Him is the wide-open door of this program. The book is direct: "When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God" (page 47). Bill W. received that same gift when his friend Ebby asked, "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" (page 12). Nobody hands us a theology. We start where we are, with whatever honest conception we can manage, and we make a decision.

Where Step 3 Lives in the Big Book

The Step appears on page 59, in Chapter 5, "How It Works," and the instructions run from page 60 through 63, with the handoff to Step 4 on page 64. The groundwork was laid one chapter earlier: "We Agnostics" (pages 44 through 57) clears away the religious objections before we arrive here, and Appendix II reminds us that willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery (page 568). If Step 3 feels too big, those pages are the runway.

How the Big Book Instructs Us to Work It

The book begins with a diagnosis, not instructions. Any life run on self-will can hardly be a success, it tells us on page 60, then paints the actor who wants to run the whole show (pages 60 and 61). The verdict lands on page 62: "Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles." In case we thought this described someone else, the same page adds, "The alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so" (page 62).

The remedy follows at once. "First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work" (page 62). Next we decided God was going to be our Director in this drama of life. "He is the Principal; we are His agents" (page 62). That is the whole shape of Step 3: we resign as general manager of the universe. Page 63 suggests taking this step with an understanding person, such as a spouse, close friend, or spiritual adviser, though it adds it is better to meet God alone than with someone who might misunderstand. Then comes the Third Step Prayer, which begins, "God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will" (page 63). The book adds, "The wording was, of course, quite optional so long as we expressed the idea, voicing it without reservation" (page 63). The idea, voiced without reservation. That is the work.

What Changes When We Make the Decision

Page 63 does not oversell the result or undersell it. "When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed." We had a new Employer, the book says, who provided what we needed when we kept close to Him and did His work well. We became less interested in ourselves and our little plans, and more interested in what we could contribute to life (page 63). As new power and peace flowed in, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, and the hereafter. "We were reborn" (page 63). The book is honest that this is only a beginning, though an effect, sometimes a very great one, is felt at once (page 63).

The Fear Underneath This Step

Here is the fear, said plainly: if I turn my will and my life over, I will lose myself. God will take away everything I enjoy, enroll me in a religion I never chose, and run my life like a warden. But look at the actual words of the Step. We turn our lives over to the care of God, and care is what a shepherd gives, not a jailer. Step 1 already taught us we were never really in control; our best managing landed us here (page 60). We are not giving up control we possess; we are stopping the pretense that we possess it. The only thing Step 3 costs us is the exhausting job of playing God, and page 62 already told us how that job was going.

One warning, and one direction. The book says on page 64 that our decision, vital and crucial as it was, could have little permanent effect unless followed at once by a strenuous effort to face the things in ourselves that had been blocking us. A decision without action fades. So we do not sit and admire Step 3; we launch into vigorous action, a searching personal inventory. It is called Step 4.