Step Three Surrender

The moment AA Step Three comes up, I can feel the tension rise, and I get it. “Turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him” can sound like a religious demand, a loss of autonomy, or a deal-breaker if you’ve been hurt by faith, you’re angry, or you don’t believe in God at all. So I slow it down and translate what Step Three is really asking for: willingness. A decision to stop acting like you have to run the entire universe by yourself in order to stay sober.

We talk about why control is the hidden fuel behind so much anxiety, resentment, and fear in addiction and in everyday life. If controlling everything worked, recovery wouldn’t be necessary. I share a simple metaphor that makes Step Three practical: you’ve been driving the car for years, crashing, speeding, missing exits, and still insisting you’ve got it. Surrender is pulling over, moving to the passenger seat, and letting something greater than self drive, whether that’s God, the AA rooms, your community, nature, or any Higher Power you can honestly accept.

I also unpack the Step Three Prayer line “relieve me of the bondage of self,” because emotional sobriety often starts when we admit the call is coming from inside the house. Healthy surrender isn’t being a doormat or avoiding hard choices; it’s accepting reality, doing your part, setting boundaries, and letting go of outcomes you can’t control. You’ll leave with a clear weekly challenge and a stronger foundation for Step Four’s fearless moral inventory. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs relief, and leave a review with the one thing you’re ready to loosen your grip on today.

Transcript

Welcome And Step Three Preview

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Well, hello and welcome back to a model. Sobriety uncorked, unfiltered, and unapologetically real. I just clicked on something and it made my screen gigantic. My name is Marcy and I'm an alcoholic. This summer we're walking through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, one step at a time. Last week we talked about step two. This is actually episode 27 in my Unbottled podcast series. So if you are new here, I I totally encourage you to go back to the beginning, and then from there you can, cafeteria style, pick and choose what you want and you want to listen to. But right now, this summer, we are going through the steps. Last week we talked about step two, came to believe in a power greater than ourselves, could restore us to sanity. We talked about hope. We talked about possibility, and we talked about the idea that maybe, just maybe, we don't have all the answers. But now we have arrived to step three. And step three is where people start getting nervous. I don't know. I think we're nervous from the beginning, but I think step three asks us to do something many of us spent our entire lives avoiding. It asks us to surrender, not quit, not give up, not become weak, but to surrender. And trust me, those are very different things.

Other Podcasts And Where To Listen

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I'm throwing my commercial break here in the beginning this time before we dive in and into this whole step three thing. If you're enjoying Unbottled, I invite you to check out my other podcasts. I have two other podcasts, one called Aging Aim for Sissies, because getting older is not for the faint of heart. That one's great for anybody 40 and above. If you're not quite at that mark, there's also inside Marcy's mind, that's for everyone, where absolutely everything is up for discussion from life hacks to travel to the random things that keep me awake at 2 a.m. It's a place where I can talk about what I want to talk about, how I want to talk about it. And it's a it's an enjoyable little podcast. So you can find all three podcasts wherever you're listening to this one. You can also find them and anything that you may need at my website, Marcybacchusmedia.com. All right, commercial over.

Step Three Wording And God

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Let's talk about step three. Okay, here's the official wording. Made a decision. Step three says made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Okay, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Now let's address the elephant in the room, the word God. Now, we've had a lot of talks about this on this podcast, about what that can look like for you, why it shouldn't stop you, even if you're an atheist, why that word shouldn't stop you. We've had a lot of discussions about that. So if you're new to recovery, this may be the step where you start thinking, nope, I'm out. I quit, not doing it, not religious. I don't believe in anything. I hate all this religion. Don't shove it down my throat. You name it, you've got it. Your brain's gonna tell you all kinds of reasons why you shouldn't be here. Let's put that aside. I get it. I really do. I can understand where this is can put off people, but let's think it again. AA has millions of members, has kept me sober for 38 years. There's something to this program. So don't get caught up in semantics, don't get caught up in a word. I want you to keep moving forward. So maybe you grew up religious, maybe you were hurt by religion, maybe you're angry at God, maybe you don't believe in God at all. The good news is AA doesn't tell you what to believe. It asks you only that you become willing to believe that you don't have to run the entire universe yourself. That's it. It asks you only that you become willing to believe that you don't have to run the entire universe yourself.

Why Control Keeps Failing

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Most alcoholics, and honestly, most humans, after all, we are humans, even if we're alcoholics, have one thing in common. We love control. We want things our way, we want people to behave correctly, we want life to go according to our plan. We want traffic to move faster, we want our spouse to understand us, we want our kids to make better decisions, we want our bosses to appreciate us. We want the world to cooperate. And when it doesn't, we get angry, resentful, fearful, and frustrated. Hmm. Sound familiar to you? All step three is is the realization that controlling everything isn't working. Because if controlling everything worked, we'd probably wouldn't have needed recovery in the first place.

The Passenger Seat Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So imagine you're driving a car. For years you've been behind the wheel. You're speeding, missing exits, running into things, driving into ditches, even getting lost. But every time someone suggests they might drive, you say, no, thanks, I've got this. Really? Because do you? Step three is finally pulling over, sliding into the passenger seat and allowing something greater than yourself to drive. That doesn't mean you stop living. It doesn't mean you stop making decisions. It means you stop acting like you're the CEO of the damn universe. Think about that though. Just think about that for a moment. Sit with it. I understand the word God is in there. You can replace that with anything you want, anything that makes you comfortable. What you're saying is, I don't have control. Maybe it's the rooms that the people are in. Maybe it's the body of AA that becomes your God, so to speak. Maybe it's a tree. Maybe it's anything. Maybe it's your cat. I don't know. But it just means step three just means you don't need to do this all alone and all by yourself and control it all. There is a misunderstanding in step three. And people think God fixes everything. That's not it. Step three is not magic. You don't say a prayer and suddenly become emotionally healthy. Oh Lord, if it was that easy. You don't wake up and all your problems disappear. Step three is a decision. It's one of the best decisions you're going to ever make in your life: a commitment, a willingness. It's saying, I am done trying to run my life my way, and then trying one day at a time to live it differently. How does that sound? Does it sound scary? It should. Does it sound less scary? I guess it all depends on how you feel about God.

Relieve Me Of The Bondage

SPEAKER_00 7:55

The step three prayer. One of the most famous prayers in AA is the step three prayer. You don't have to memorize it, you don't even have to use it, but many people find it powerful. A portion says, relieve me of the bondage of self. Think about that. The bondage of self. What a phrase. Because so much of our suffering comes from us. You may in the beginning of sobriety think it came from the outside world. I promise you, it came from inside. You know the scary movies when the phone call comes and you realize it comes from inside the house. Guess what? Relieve me of the bondage of self. So much of our suffering comes from us. Our fears, our resentments, our expectations, our need to be right, our need to control, our need to win, our need to protect our ego. The prison often isn't out there, it's in here. They're calling from inside the house, I'm telling you now. All right.

Healthy Surrender Versus Avoidance

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Surrender. I always think of like a white flag waving in the wind. Surrender does not mean becoming a doormat, staying in unhealthy situations, letting people mistreat you, giving up responsibility, avoiding difficult decisions. That's not surrender, that's avoidance. Healthy surrender means accepting reality as it is, not as you wish it were. I'm going to say that again. Healthy key word here, healthy, surrender, means accepting reality as it is and not as you wish it were. So what does it look like in real life? Let's get practical. Maybe your adult child is making choices you don't like. Step three says love them, support them, pray for them, but stop trying to force them. Maybe your spouse isn't changing fast enough. Step three says do your part, set your boundaries, communicate honestly, but stop trying to control their journey. Stop trying to control their journey. Maybe you're terrified about the future. Maybe it's money, health, aging, retirement, or just this damn world right now. Steps three says, do what you can today. Then let go of the rest. Not because it doesn't matter, because worrying about it isn't helping and it's not going to fix it. Trust me, it's not. My son and I were talking about the state of the world and politics and things like that. And we were both lamenting our frustration with certain things. But my son said, you know what, mom? I can't control all of that. But I can the only thing I can control is myself. So I'm going to be a positive force in this world. And I'm like, whoa, who is that kid? I was very proud of him. He's also not an alcoholic. He's a normie. Thank you, Jesus, for that. But he knows that we only can control what we can control.

Relief Now, Inventory Next Week

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Here's what nobody told me: control is exhausting. Trying to manage everyone else is exhausting. Trying to predict every outcome is exhausting. Trying to prevent every possible disaster is exhausting. And eventually we get tired. Step three offers relief, not perfection, relief. The relief of admitting I don't have to carry the whole damn world on my shoulders. That is a gift. And Dr. Bob and Bill W knew that. There's a reason step three comes before step four, because step four, we'll talk about next week, but it asks us to be to take a fearless moral inventory. Okay, that's some heavy work. And before we start digging through our past, our resentments, our fears, and our mistakes, we need a foundation. We need to know we're not doing it alone. And that's what step three provides. So if you're working through the steps right now with your sponsor, I want to make sure that you don't just skip through steps one, two, and three. I want you to listen to my podcasts, obviously. I want you to read them. I want you to study them. I want you to discuss them with your sponsor. And I want you to be clear what they are asking of you and doing for you. Because step four, some real work begins. And I want you to have a really good foundation. All right.

Your Weeklong Control Challenge

SPEAKER_00 13:32

So your challenge for the week. This week, I want you to ask yourself, what am I trying to control that I can't actually control? That's challenge number one. I want you to write it down. I want you to be honest. And then the other part of the challenge is I want you to ask yourself, what would happen if I loosened my grip just a little? Not forever, just for today. One day at a time. Let's just talk about that challenge again. I want you to ask yourself, what am I trying to control that I really can't control? It's all an illusion. I want you to write that down, be honest about it, then ask, what would be happened if I loosened my grip just a little? Not forever, just for today, a day at a time. Alrighty. Step three isn't about becoming religious. It's about becoming willing, willing to stop fighting every battle, willing to stop carrying every burden, willing to trust that maybe there is a better way than the one we've been trying. And if you're struggling with this step, you're not alone. Almost all of us did. Keep coming back. You'll hear that a lot in the rooms. Keep coming back, and we mean it. Keep listening and keep trying. Remember, none of us are perfect. Next week we'll tackle step four, the step everybody fears and almost everybody survives. Until then, remember, you don't have to do recovery perfectly. You just have to keep showing up. I am Marcy. I've been sober 38 years. I am an alcoholic, and this has been unbottled. I want you to stay sober, stay curious, and keep living the life that's waiting for you on the other side of the bottle.