Nar-Anon Chat™

There is a saying in the Ala-Teen program that says, “God can’t do his work if you’re standing in his way.” Several years ago a popular song said,

“If it don’t fit don’t force it
just relax and let it go.
Just ’cause you want it
don’t make it so.”

A Nar-Anon member once shared at a meeting how she uses three strikes and your out, meaning she tries three times to force her will, then turns it over to her Higher Power.

Many of us in Nar-Anon find Step Three very difficult to apply to our lives. Some of us come to a stop at Step Three while others just step over it. We are not willing to turn our will and life over to a God or Higher Power that we don’t know or understand. For too long we have been the controllers, the ones who our families expect to fix things. A lot of times we were there to help even when our help was not needed or wanted and even rejected. How many of us have called the addicts employer, lied about their being late or not going to work? How many of us have paid the traffic tickets, the bails, the lawyers, the rent, the bills and covered up for them when they didn’t show up at family and social affairs? We got the information for the addicts about the recovery centers and the meeting schedules. We took them to their meetings and gave them advice on how many and how often they should attend. We have done (and some of us still do) for our addicts the things they need to do for themselves. We forced our will and didn’t allow the will of the Higher Power to be done.

As we started to work this Step, most of us became confused about when we re helping and when we are hindering. Maybe if we could just remember that the addicts didn’t need our help when they started and continued their drug abuse, we might be able to step aside and allow them to suffer the consequences of their actions and seek their own recovery. Maybe if we could learn to, “Let go and let God”, and apply the Serenity Prayer to our lives, we might be able to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God or a Higher Power.

Serenity Pray

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.

How do I feel about turning my life over to a Higher Power for guidance?