Step Three

"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

Step three is where my recovery from a lot of things started.

I did the steps basically out of order. I picked step ten out of the list of steps when I'd first checked them out as a teen. It sounded good to me to keep checking one's behavior and making amends for things done wrong.

When I did step three I was alone in my apartment in Bellingham. I had been smoking marijuana for about three years at that time. I was very scared when I did it. I didn't really do the step because I wanted to quit drugs.... I did it because I was afraid of the devil. At the time I thought the devil was trying to steal my soul or my body and do awful things with it to others. I thought, too, the devil was trying to tempt me to do evil things to my baby girl. I was having rape hallucinations that were worse at night and when the baby would breastfeed. I thought these hallucinations were demons raping me. It never occurred to me that they were just hallucinations -- after all it felt like something was actually touching my body. I said I turn over my mind, body, heart, soul and will to God.

Funny, but when all the chaos started at the coffee shop I was volunteering at -- where I started smoking pot and hallucinating -- fellow smokers who volunteered there were talking about merging their wills with Spirit's will.

I've had many concepts of God throughout my life. At that time I saw God like a stone giant who had long flowing white hair and beard. I'd also seen God as a Goddess. My Higher Power for a long time was just the Universe. I kept coming back to the concept of God as a nebulous, genderless entity that really had no shape but was everwhere. I called this entity Spirit, because that was the popular name for God in my circle of "friends" at the time. But, even the Bibble says there is more then one entity that makes up "God" (The Father, the Son, and the Holy (or Great) Spirit.) I just happened to, and still do believe there is a Goddess in the equation.

I just knew I didn't want anything to do with the devil. You see -- I'd been raped several times as a little girl and I just knew the devil orchestrated that. Although I didn't really trust or even like God too much at that point, I turned my whole self over to Him/Her. I wasn't sure, at the time, what people meant when they talked about God's love, and I did not feel that Jesus did love me. However, that was a better option then giving in to the devil. I wanted make sure that I, with my will, didn't violate my values and hurt someone -- and, well, God had never attacked me.....

Things did change after that. I had several things to recover from. I really belonged in alanon before I became addicted. I was very codependent on my "best friend" at the time. I'm sure God's will for me at that time was to get healthy. S/He just wasn't going to be the one to perform that big of a miracle and hela me. I had three stalkers too, and the police were convinced I was just crazy. One of them was a violent ex boyfriend. My daughter's father was exhibiting stalking behavior. The third one was a drug connection that had been accused of being a child molester. I was in a very dangerous situation in addition to being paranoid, and I was basically chased out of my apartment and that town. Another drug connection was starting to scare me too. I ended up taking off with my daughter in the middle of the night and hitchhiking with her out of town.

I think God helped chase me out of that town, too. I remember that the bushes around my apartment started to resemble monsters and they stayed that way for weeks. The shadows of tree branches on the wall looked like monsters too. Nightly I'd hear noises outside the windows. I kept hearing scratching on the outer walls and other things. Seeing Jesus' face in the wood grain of my cupboards and in the tree branches outside was a bit scary too. I was also hearing voices....

I think God's will for me at that time was for me to get away from that town and out of danger.

I got picked up in Montana with my baby. They took her away from me. After a suicide attempt sparked by a painful hallucination that my soul was being eaten by some dark amorphous entity combined with the certaintly I'd never get my daughter back, I was locked up in a mental health ward. They finally diagnosed me with psychosis NOS. I was still not seeing that it was God's will for me to get better. I did not like any of the medications they gave me, and had not told anyone about my depression or sought treatment for that.

After I gave her up for adoption because of seemingly impossible odds combined with some unfair treatment, I lost my place to live.

I'm sure now that God really wanted me to get away from the addicts I was associating with. At that time, I was still sure that pot came from God and it was perfectly okay to smoke it! But, I no longer trusted my connections especially since they either didn't care about or seemed threats to my daughter.

I ended up wandering around the U.S.A.. I learned from all this that God won't take our free will away from us no matter what. But, I also learned that God wants to be in our hearts. While on the road, I felt Jesus trying to get into my heart. I saw powerful imagery to that effect in my head too that would not go away. I decided that was alright with me, and let Him in. It was a very strong experience. I ended up talking a lot to Him after that. I began to understand that God did love me and began to feel it shortly thereafter. My self esteem began to improve even while I was doing drugs.

I was forced to quit the drugs. I was locked up, pretty much until I had made peace with my medications, go through treatment and was actually on the right medications. I began to realize things. I realized that God (or the Spirit) was love and that God did love me. I realized that God wants us to be healthy and free. I also realized that God wants us to find real happiness.

It says in the 12x12 that dependence upon our higher power makes us more independent. I can testify to that! It frees us from dependence upon others. God provides much of what we need and it frees us from manipulation -- both our own and other people's.

When I did this step again (in order this time) it was much easier then the first time. It was very scary the first time. I no longer felt insane or codependent on anyone, and I am a fairly happy individual. Within reason, I've found that God wants me to be comfortable too. What a pleasant surprise that is!