Hi everyone. And welcome to a podcast about sobriety for the LGBT plus community and our allies. I'm your host, Steve Bennet-Martin I am an alcoholic and I am grateful for my higher power. As of this recording, I am 162 days sober. And today I'm going to share with you my third step reflection and what that was like with my sponsor last night. Now, since we did cover a briefly before, just to reiterate step three, is.
I made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God, as we understood God now in my original self journey of sobriety, I was amazed that I had wrapped my mind around it pretty well. Even without the help of a sponsor. Even though at first it was one of the steps I read and I was like, well, I'm just gonna skip that for sure. I had to basically crust off in my mind as I read through it.
I mean, there was no way I'd be turning my well in my life over to some God, because at the time I felt what had got, ever done. I mean, I grew up in a Catholic household and went to a Catholic school. I went through all the sacraments in church. I am a Eucharistic minister and I received a literal, a plus in religion yet throughout all of this, I was never really spiritual or truly believed that God was looking out for me. If he did then why was my dad so angry every time he got home from work.
And why did he take it out on us so bad? If God was looking out for me, why would my cousin molest me at family gathering? If God was looking out for me, then why there to feel like I was always drawing the short end of the stick of life, even from a very young and early age. Now in hindsight, I had never really differentiated between God and Jesus and Santa Claus. They were all religious quote unquote entities that you were told to believe in. You couldn't see them.
And they supposedly were always looking out for you. When I learned that Santa wasn't real, I figured the rest of it must be alive. And all my schooling and church going. I never thought of it in the way that it's worded in the program. A God of my own understanding there was a specific type of God who had specific beliefs in school, and there was no such thing as the idea of more than one version of God. It was God with a capital G or no God at all.
And I had chosen, no, God. However, once I heard the concept in the rooms about a God of my own understanding, I felt more open-minded to the idea of attempting steps two and three, but I had trouble getting there when the Catholic version of God and didn't really work out for me, well, to get started and trying to reflect upon it or get to know my higher power better. I figured I would just start off by just not calling it. God, that was not going to be the name for my higher power.
It would just be higher power. I'd write in my journal about my higher power and reflect on it as such. And it started making me open to the idea of having one of my own understanding. I realized that I was spiritually broke without the help of a higher power, and that was not getting me anywhere I wanted what other people in the program had and they believed, and I just didn't know how to get through.
Now in the 12 and 12, they mentioned that step three is like finding the key to a lock door and willingness is all you need. Once you have that willingness and it's like unlocking that door, you could feel like a flood of light. And understanding that moment happened for me when I was reflecting on the concept of a higher power and decided that it was too long to write out. So I shortened it as HP in my notes, in that entry.
I know I'd kind of told the story before, but when I re-read it, I read HP the same way I do in all my videos. Health or hit points. And in that moment, the wave hit me in video games. Your HP is what keeps you alive and going on in the fight, you lose it little by little throughout the game, through various actions, but you can do certain things to restore it as well. I realized that in my life, I had been running around with zero to very little HP for quite some time. And I was hanging on by.
However, there were ways for me to restore my HP or in real life restore my relationship with my higher power, praying, going to meetings, talking to fellows, helping others, meditation, doing this podcast. And a handful of other things helped me a little by little restore. That relationship with my higher power as time has gone on, I've felt more comfortable in my relationship with my higher power so much so that eventually even felt ease at calling it. God has.
However, I remember reading step three and the prayer associated with it and being very concerned about what's hurting my well in my life over to them would mean it was basically the first proactive action that I had to take in my sobriety and working the steps since the first two are more about accepting concepts rather than putting things into action.
But I remember I was so focused on the third step prayer, which for those of you who are unfamiliar, says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as that. Relieve me of the bondage itself that I may better do. They will take away my difficulties that victory over them may be a witness to those. I would help if thy power that I love and my way of life may I do like, well, okay.
I was so caught up in what God wanted to do with me, what their plan for me was and what they were going to make me do. I was so consumed with the part where I mentioned do with me as that wealth that I felt like I had to understand the deal that I was about to enter into and know exactly what it was that that was going to be called to do at one point in time. I know I was acting childish.
I mean, in hindsight it's like I was acting like God was going to wait until he gets all these AAS together and then tell us. You know, drink Kool-Aid or go out and kill all the drunks, or I don't know what I was convinced that will would have been for me if I gave myself over to my higher power, but upon working with my sponsor, I've come to realize that it isn't one specific thing I'm being called to action for.
It's the little things in my everyday life that make me a better person than I was before in my active addiction in giving my well in my life over to the care of God, as I understood it. Typically they're playing for me is to be less of a Dick than I normally could be at times. I mean, after all my favorite parents' sobriety has been the serenity prayer. I wear it on a dog tag around my neck on most days, and that says, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things.
I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. I have had full faith in this prayer long before I accepted step three completely, but it's all the same. When I take a moment to reflect back on God and ask for serenity, courage and wisdom. That is in fact, him doing with me is that will, and it is working for. So I want to thank you all for listening today.
On my reflections back on step three, I am slightly nervous about starting step four over the next week or so. As well as some other topics I have in the pipeline that I'm excited to bring to you. Once I get a chance to write them all out, a little more clear. So I'd love to hear your feedback. Please rate and review if you found this information helpful and email me any time for any [email protected] and make sure you're following us wherever you're listening right now.
So you can get new episodes and they come out every Monday and Thursday, and then till that time stay sober friends.