STEP THREE
"We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of god, as we understood him."
[Spiritual principle(s) associated with this step: Trust, Faith]
It was 1988. My boss called me into her office. She said she had thought long and hard about firing me, and that she probably should, but instead she was going to give me an ultimatum. After work, on that very day, she said, she and I would attend an AA or an NA meeting. If I didn’t agree, I was to clear out my office and she would accept my resignation before the end of the day.
I went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting with her.
I sat in the back of the room. She stayed outside talking to some others who didn’t come into the meeting. She didn’t give me the option of staying outside. I looked around the room and saw posters with quotes everywhere:
“Just For Today.”
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“God does for me what I cannot do for myself.”
“Step 3: Turn it over to God.”
What is this place? Who are these people, a bunch of Jesus-freaks? I closed my mind and went off to the private place in my head I know so well. Everyone got in a circle at the end of the meeting and said a prayer. I bolted as soon as the people on either side of me let go of my hand.
My boss caught up with me half-way to the car. “So, what did you think?”
“It is a cult. Have you ever actually been to one of these meetings?”
“No, but my brother goes to NA and it saved his life.”
I doubted that. “Well, I’m not going back. Fire me, if you want, but I’m not going back to listen to a bunch of religious fanatics talk about how they used to get be junkies and now they are not because they found God. I got saved when I was nine and it obviously didn’t take.”
She "suspended" me. I am sure I could have fought it, but I was snorting cocaine all day at work and I had come back from lunch on more than one occasion after downing five or six drinks. Some days I drank more and didn’t come back at all. She was right to cut me loose.
I ended up in my first rehab a few months later. My mind remained closed. They talked about God there, too. I asked them how they could bill my medical insurance company for requiring me to attend religious meetings as part of my ‘treatment.’ I never got an answer.
Many times in the following years, I stumbled back into AA or NA meetings, either on my own, or as a requirement of whatever rehab center I happened to be in at the time. And every single time I got to step three, I balked. Usually I did more than that – usually I left and didn’t come back for a long time.
One time, in 1996, I got clean for a few months and didn’t run when I got to step three. I decided to revisit the God of my childhood. I was so angry at that God, though. I prayed. I talked about God. I went to church some. I tried. But I felt that God had let me down and I didn't trust that He would help me now. I ended up using again.
When I got clean again in 1997, I heard something I somehow missed all those other times. I heard this: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to ….god… as we understood him.” Hmm, well, I don’t understand god at all. Every version of god I’ve ever read about or heard about doesn’t make any sense to me.
I got busy defining a new version of god, one that made sense to me, one that I could halfway understand and believe in. Through my research and seeking, I discovered I believed in reincarnation. My soul was also recognizing many truths in the eastern religions. Someone gave me a copy of the Tao Te Ching after I shared about my aversion to the whole ‘god-thing’ in a meeting one night. I read Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching in its entirety that night. Then I went to the bookstore and bought several other translations.
My favorite translation remains Mitchell's:
Tao #16:
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.
Suddenly, I saw a new face of god, one I’d never seen before.
When I am at one with the source, when I at one with the Tao, it is like floating on a raft down the river, gently going with the current. When I go against the Tao, when I try to manipulate people and situations, when I attempt to control all that is around me, it is like trying to fight the current and go upstream, against the current. ‘Working’ step three, for me, means flowing with that current. Even when I come upon whitewater, even when the rapids batter my raft, if I allow the current to guide me, I will get where I need to go.
Flowing with that current, realizing where I come from, discovering my source, my concept of god, my very personal, very individual, very private spiritual beliefs, allows me to deal with whatever life brings me.
It is that simple. And it always was.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
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