The Essence of Step Three - Acceptance

What if the turning point in recovery isn’t willpower, but acceptance? We go straight to the heart of Step Three and unpack how acceptance transforms vague intentions into tangible progress. Instead of forcing surrender, we build a path from change (Step One) to safety and help (Step Two), then into the daily practice of accepting reality—so you can move with clarity, not struggle against it.

We challenge the comforting myths—“I’m not that bad,” “I can stop anytime”—and explore why the brain treats addiction like an oxygen line. From there, we offer practical tools that make acceptance real: protective routines that reduce friction, connection practices that lower shame, and the simple daily triad of laugh, work, and love. You’ll hear why relationships feel lighter when both people lift their end, how skills outcompete excuses in your career and finances, and why soreness from training beats the slow ache of neglect over the long run.

We also tackle spirituality without shortcuts. Rather than promising instant surrender, we invite a grounded approach: believe in something bigger and still own your choices. Prayer, reflection, and community can support that balance, but the engine is honest acceptance of where you are—emotionally, physically, financially, and relationally—so Step Four’s honesty can land. If you’re ready to stop wrestling with reality and start shaping it, this conversation offers a clear map: change, safety, acceptance, repeat.

Subscribe for more grounded guidance on the 12 steps, share this with someone who needs a fresh start, and leave a review to tell us one truth you’re ready to accept today.

Chapters

• 0:02 Naming Step Three’s Essence
• 0:10 Laugh, Work, Love As Daily Anchors
• 0:37 Join The Recovery Freedom Circle
• 1:09 Rethinking The 12 Steps
• 2:05 Step One: Embracing Change
• 3:11 Why Stopping Feels Like Losing Oxygen
• 4:22 Step Two: Help And Safety
• 4:49 Step Three: Practicing Acceptance
• 6:31 Accept Past To Prepare For Honesty
• 7:14 Relationships, Work, And Skill Building
• 8:26 Health, Habits, And Daily Discipline
• 9:20 Spirituality Versus Willpower
• 9:58 Change, Safety, Acceptance: Move Forward

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

What is the essence of step three? Acceptance. Now we need to take a deeper dive. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day, to work hard, work hard in recovery, work hard in your relationships, work hard in your jobs, school, business, just work. And to love unconditionally. Just put much more love out there and watch much more love returned. Now, I encourage people to join the Facebook group Recovery Freedom Circle. The link is down below. Is a community where we talk about the steps, we talk about recovery, healing, talk about our own experiences, even goals and dreams, and also people who are struggling with certain steps or certain things in their life to allow people to just live their best life. Now, let's jump in to this week's episode, The Essence of Step Three, which is part of the essence of each of the 12 steps. Because I believe that true healing, true recovery comes by understanding the 12 steps, not just the way Bill Wilson wrote them in 1938, not from getting the skeleton or six of them from the Oxford group. It's got to be constantly explained because there's never been a psychological twist. There hasn't been an everyday method like the 12 steps explain to get to the heart of it. Now, as we talked about the essence of step one, change. A person has to confront that they have to start changing their life until that concept really sinks in and gets swallowed. Everything else is going to be start and stop. Two steps forward, one step back. Or they're going to rationalize in their brain that they're not that bad. They're not drinking that much. They're not gambling that much. And the beauty of them all, I can stop anytime I want, even though there is so much evidence that there is too much devastation, destruction where your life is not moving forward. And so try to get people to really understand you've got to change. Now, the best and easiest thing to do is to stop an addiction so you can at least take a step back and figure out what you need to do for your life to live your best life. See, a lot of times people get freaked out about stopping drinking, stopping gambling. Number one, it's been part of their life for X amount of years. So it's almost like cutting off some type of oxygen tank. And that is very, very difficult. That's why you got to do other things like set a schedule. But let's get to it. So people that are needing to stop an addiction realize it's just that is hard because that's what they're accustomed to. And when they get anxious, when they get sad, even if they get some moments of happiness, is that they still go back to the addiction because it's comfortable. So you've got to accept the change so you can start to detox. And which also means is in step two, which that essence is just about not only uh getting help, but also about knowing that you can't do this alone. And so we come into really the essence of step three, which is acceptance. So you you understand you need to change, you understand that step two, besides being, and the only way to accept help is to feel safe. And once you feel safe, then you can start to really accept because as you start to move forward and really delve into the emotional disease, the emotional component, the psychological component, the physical component, you've got to accept where you're at. And that's what's really challenging to a lot of people is that they don't realize is that they got to accept the facts of where they are in terms of relationships, health, and all types of help, especially emotional, spiritual, mental, but also your physical and your financial help. You've got to really address what you truly want in life. And so the essence of step three is to start to accept and accept the fact that you can't do this alone, that you need help, you've got to find the people that you connect with so then you can move forward. I mean, the beauty of recovery is to laugh every day, to be able to work, and to be able to love. And if you do those three things, you've had a great day, you've been productive, you've also enjoyed the day, and you've lived in love. And so you start to accept what step three is about. Step three is about accepting what has happened in your past, so then you can move forward. Because step four, the essence of step four is honesty. I'm just gonna give you kind of a teaser to get into next week. But until you start to accept things, then you can really become honest. And I think in the beginning, people kind of try to do everything in all kinds of ways, and realizing life doesn't have to be so hard. Relationships don't have to be so hard. Like they say, like Chris Rock had that joke. Moving a couch isn't hard if both people pick up their end. Relationships aren't hard if both people are actually in it and want to be in it. Same thing is your own life. Making money isn't that hard if you have a focus and you start acquiring skills and you start putting in the effort and the time and you keep developing it. So there's so much really just depends on accepting on what you need to do. Yes, life is work. Life is work to stay healthy because I'd rather be healthy than be on medication or worrying about what aches my body. I'd rather be sore from a workout than not being able to bend down or to fear that I might have some type of hospitalization in my 60s or 70s. I'd rather be at the forefront, eat correctly, uh, take care of my heart. And so so much of life is about accepting what you need to do. I'm also a big proponent of prayer every day. I'm a big proponent of connecting with people one way or another, face to face, phone calls, text. There's so many easy ways to connect. So you got to always start to accept your life. And really you start to accept step three. See, in the old ways, we talk about you have to be powerless, you have to come to believe in a higher power, and you got to turn your will into a higher power, turn your will over to a higher power, that everything will be okay. But I've yet to meet someone that's willing to either understand their own concept of spirituality, higher power, and God within 30 days. It's just not practical. It's just, and people who always say, Well, I've turned my will over to God, Jesus, Allah, higher power, the group. And I still believe in free will. I'm not a big believer in turning our will over, but I am a big believer in believing in something. I believe in God, and I know so much wonderful things have happened in my life because of God. But I believe a lot of this first has to come from a psychological and emotional basis. Like they say, nothing can really grow until you actually develop this type of acceptance, this type of understanding that there's something bigger out there. And so, what I want to encourage everybody to do, accept step three, so you can move forward and grow in your recovery, change, safety, acceptance. That is the way to really hit the ground running and really start to change your life. With that, we're going to conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery podcast.