Understanding Principle Three of AA Alcoholics Anonymous
#3 - The Principle of Faith
“Hope is praying for rain, but faith is bringing an umbrella.” -Unknown
The third spiritual principle behind step three of Alcoholics Anonymous is the principle of faith. Faith, along with the first two principles of honesty and hope, forms the perfect trifecta of a functional foundation for spiritual recovery. The first three principles work together and form a synergistic connection that is necessary to help us on our sober journey. Life in a spiritual program of “Discovery” is miraculous, and the more time I spend taking good orderly direction or trusting God, the more I experience a higher level of faith.
People in a program of recovery take numerous paths in a quest for faith and are not allied with any particular single faith, sect or denomination. And yet, we all get to experience this infused virtue by the sheer power of revelation. In this way, faith really comes down to having complete confidence, belief, and trust in a higher power, or God; it grows when we take action, and see the evidence of faith in action all around us.
There is a little bit of faith in many areas of our life already, whether we realize it or not; when we get on an airplane we have faith that the pilot knows what they are doing; when we go to the doctor, we have faith that they have been trained and licensed and can take care of us. In Step three we “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” With the third principle of faith, we are similarly practicing handing over the keys to the spiritual car, just like we handed our car keys over to someone at a party because we trusted them and had faith that they were staying sober! Turning over your life comes down to learning how to trust yourself, other people, and most importantly, trusting God.
Activating Faith: Trust in God
During my using days, I was continuously surrounding myself with other broken people. My trust was broken so many different times in my life, with so many different people. After I sobered up and got stabilized, I could see things more clearly; looking at life through the lens of faith I recognized my part in it all. I had put my self in those situations and environments, and was placing blame on others, and didn’t trust myself.
Nowadays, putting myself with healthy people helps me trust other people. However, putting my trust in people, places or things is not the only thing that helps to keep me sober. In my experience, what has helped me tremendously has been my trust in God. Admitting a power greater than myself did not take away anything from my life -other than self-annihilation and destruction to all that was in my path.
Admitting or “ letting in” God helped to put an end to the merciless obsession to use and continues to help guide me through recovery and a joyous, ridiculous life.
I am so grateful for how much peace and freedom from the obsession of addiction that my faith has brought my family and me. I couldn’t do much about my drug and alcohol problem on my own, but when I came to believe that a loving higher power, which I choose to call “God”, could open the lock of “self-will”, it activated faith.
Living Faithfully: A Broader Perspective
“Faith, to be sure is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing… by faith and by works we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience.” - 12&12
For me, living faithfully really activates faith. I love the structure of my routine, which for me is a huge part of what creates the necessary feeling of security and safety. I have a life that is so full, and abundant, and beyond my wildest dreams. But, faith is like anything else, it’s what you do with it that counts, and anything worth having is not easy. Getting to the spiritual state of being where I am living faithfully takes action! Whether through prayer and meditation, Gratitude Lists, or going on retreats, I can deepen my faith and get more rooted –but I have to do the work. My faith rarely gets challenged when I’m doing the work… and not trying to take the easy way out.
Fortunately, there’s a bonus; when I deepen my faith and foundation, my balance is not thrown off. Being more deeply rooted in faith is also so exciting because it’s not static. It’s always changing. The process is always unfolding as it is supposed to and the more I start to see that things are working out and falling into place, the more actions I want to take. I trust the process- whereas before I didn’t trust anyone, anything, and least of all myself. If I didn’t trust that everything I am doing in my life right now is helping my life to be better, including staying sober and working a spiritual program, I wouldn’t be able to keep doing it.
Living without faith is like walking around with horse blinders on, unreceptive, with a closed lens. But looking at life through the lens of faith allows not only a broader perspective but also more opportunities for growth. Building a relationship with God has allowed me to slow down, connect, have an open perspective, and respect each opportunity for growth.It’s okay not to have all the answers, to let go of expectations and outcomes that are beyond our control.
I have faith in this.
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