- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
These steps declare the glaring errors of Alcoholics Anonymous, a cult which infuses its members with a false identity, then prescribes a series of steps which keep a man wandering in self-centered guilt, shame, and fear.
The steps claim that a man's life is unmanageable, then claims that he must be restored to sanity.
Yet the Alcoholics Anonymous book posits in another passage:
Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power? (AA, pg 45)
Then:
When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn. (AA, pg 63)
But then:
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
So what is it, then? Do we need power, a new birth, a restoration of sanity, or a spiritual awakening?
Because of the evasive terms refering to the transformation, one can only conclude that this program is a nullity.
We do not need a new mindset, a set of principles, or steps. We do not need to make our lives better, we do not need a new life.
We need life (period!). We need life, and that more abundantly:
" 16“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal
life.17“For God did not send
the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved
through Him.18“He who believes in
Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he
has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3: 16-18)
Jesus did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live:
"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2Wherein in time
past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of
the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience: 3Among whom also
we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of
wrath, even as others." (Ephesians 2: 1-3)
Jesus is the life that we need. for He is Life:
"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10: 10)
and
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (Joh 14: 6)
We do not need to manager our lives better, nor do we need to turn our will and our lives over to some higher power that we try to understand, but rather we need to believe on Jesus, whom God the Father sent to die for us, to live for us, to live through us, that we may live in glory with Him forever.
He is our life (Colossians 4: 3), and the life that He gives us is a life which works within us both to will and to do for His good pleasure, too (Philippians 2: 12-13)
Forget Step three, and all the other steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous Cult. Look to Jesus, and let His faith live in you (Hebrews 12: 2; Galatians 2: 20-21)
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