How It Works: Step 3

How It Works: Step 3: (Pages 60 – 64)

1. What are we to be convinced of?
2. Our textbook says that we were “at” Step 3, not that we have “taken” Step 3.  What is the difference?
3. What is a requirement?
4. What is the 1st requirement of taking Step 3?
5. Our text says that, “Any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.”  What does this mean to you?  Do you think it is odd that Bill doesn’t mention drinking?  Why or why not?
6. Why would we still collide with someone if our motives are good?
7. What does “self-propulsion” mean?
8. What is Bill saying about the kind of “actor” he describes?
9. Have you ever tried to arrange life to suit yourself?  How did that work out for you?  For others?
10. Have you ever thought that if “others” would do as you wish, “Life would be wonderful.”?
11. Have you acted “virtuous” to try and get your way?
12. Have you ever acted with in “other ways” to try and get your own way?
13. How did the show come off for you?
14. How did you respond?
15. Did you learn to manipulate others even more?
16. Were you at fault?  Were others more to blame than you?
17. How did you respond to the continued failure of life?
18. Answer this question, “What is his (your) basic trouble?”
19. Were you a self-seeker even when trying to kind?
20. Have you ever been a “victim of the delusion” that you could wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if you only managed well”?  What do you think Bill means by “manages well”?
21. What is your personal definition of “managing well”?
22. Do you think others knew how you were/are?
23. What is their general response?
24. Were you, even in your best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
25. If so, what would that make you?
26. Define the word, “Self-centered”.
27. Define the word, “Ego-centric”.
28. What do all these next characters have in common?
29. What three things are most of us concerned with?
30. What is the root of our troubles?  (Notice, Bill makes a point to NOT mention drinking or alcohol as our “root problem”.)
31. What are we driven by?
32. What does “driven” mean in this context?
33. What happens when we live like this?
34. What do we invariably find out?
35. Where do these problems arise out of?
36. What are alcoholics an example of?
37. Do you think that is true of yourself?
38. What must we alcoholics be rid of?
39. Why?
40. Who’s help do we need to get rid of this selfishness?
41. Do you have moral and philosophical convictions?
    1. If yes, what are they?
    2. If no, are you sure about that?
42. Could you keep your morals and philosophical codes?
43. When we wished or tried to reduce our self-centeredness, why did we fail?
44. What did we need to have?
45. What do we need to quit doing first?  Why would we quit that?
46. Next, what three things do we need to decide…
    1. …about God?
    2. …about ourselves?
47. To quit playing God and to decide that He is the Director, Principal and Father, plus that we are His children and agents, is the “keystone” of the new and triumphant arch through which we pass to what?
    1. Why doesn’t this say sobriety?
48. What position do we need to take sincerely?
49. What will happen?
50. What do we have that is new?
    1. Why does Bill call God our “Employer”?
51. What are the two conditions to allow God to provide for us all that we need?
52. Once we are established on such a footing we became less and less in what three things?
53. What did we become more and more interested in?
54. What are the three requirements to lose our fear?
55. What are the three time frames of life where fear is present?
56. What does “reborn” mean?
57. After all of that, we are now ready to say the 3rd Step Prayer.
58. In each line of the 3rd Step Prayer there are “requests” and “reasons for the requests”.  Write down the four “requests we make to God” and the three “reasons for making those requests”?
59. Why are we offering ourselves to God?
60. Why are we asking for relief from the bondage of self?
61. Why are we asking that our difficulties be removed?
62. What is the implication of the sentence, “Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of life.”?
63. What if I do not help people?
64. Have you thought well before taking this step?
65. Do you want to take it?
66. Are you ready to at last abandon yourself utterly to God?
    1. If not, are you willing to just follow the process of the 12 Steps and see what happens?
    2. If not, are you at least willing to talk to someone, who has actually worked all 12 Steps, about your concerns with Step 3?
67. What did those first 100 find desirable to do?
68. Is the wording of the 3rd Step mandatory?
69. Have we completed the 3rd Step or is saying the prayer only a beginning in completing the 3rd Step?
70. What does “vigorous action” mean?
71. What is the “first step” to completing the 3rd Step?
72. Prior to AA, have you attempted a “personal housecleaning”?
73. Why do you think he doesn’t say “personal inventory” at this point?
    1. HINT:  To complete Step 3, we must do Steps 4 – 12.  This will “clean the house, not just determine what needs cleaning in the house.”
74. On page 64, our textbook says, “Though our decision was a vital and crucial step…”  Is this decision Step 3?
75. Following through on our decision (Step 3) takes two “strenuous efforts” in order to get “permanent effect” from the decision, what are they?
76. Which of the 12 Steps do you think Bill means when he says “face” the things in ourselves which had been blocking us?
77. Which of the 12 Steps do you think Bill means when he says “be rid of” the things in ourselves which had been blocking us?
78. Define the “symptom”.
79. Ultimately, what was symptom of the problem?
    1. If that is true, what is the problem?

**Big Book Study:  Chapter 5:  How It Works (Step 4: Resentments)