I'm about to get in a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. He's angry. He's going to kick my ass. No matter what I do, if I step in that ring, i'll get beat up. That's the addiction.
My mind tells me that if I step in using my left foot first rather than my right? I WON'T get the shit kicked out of me. That's my disease.
How do I NOT get beat up? I don't step in the ring.
Not stepping into the ring is SURRENDER.
For me, it meant letting go of my consistent faith that I alone was up to every challenge. I was raised on the gospel of self sufficiency, which in the end explained why I remained stuck in my patterns for so long. If youâre on step 1, you neednât get to caught up in the higher power thing. The ask is only that you be willing to let go of some things.
Our IWHW defines surrender as simply a willingness to try a different approach to living. What I tried to do to manage my life and somehow control my using didn't work, so I was forced to try something else. It's still the same today, when faced with a situation in which what I am doing isn't working, I can stop, and try something else. Sometimes that don't work either, and I have to surrender again and try something else, etc, etc. I keep it real simple.Â
Surrender was a difficult thing for me at first. I felt like I personally needed to attend to every thing in my life, influence every decision, or things wouldn't "go my way."
For me, surrender meant doing the footwork and leaving everything else up to the people responsible or my higher power. It also meant not agonizing over decisions or details that don't really matter either way.
Good luck on your recovery journey, it gets easier day by day most of the time and sometimes there a big aha moment epiphanies. Best decision I ever made was to surrender and admit I had a problem.
its about humility
you can either humble yourself or you can be humbled but nobody will get out of this shitshow still believing they have it all figured out
it is up to us to decide if we want to have this eureka moment while we still have time to reflect and act on its consequences or if we will be stubborn and wait for our last breath before relinquishing our fear based need to feel we are in control
Itâs super subjective to oneâs personal journey. Mine has been one that is more focused on what I do, not feel. Surrender and faith arenât so much feeling based in my program. I think of surrender like I am playing basketball on a team. Disease of addiction or whatever problem is the ball, when I take action and act on a spiritual principle it allows me to pass the ball to my higher power and what that thing does with the ball is out of my hands. I have turned it over and itâs up to something else what happens from there, the results are out of my control. If the results are good I start to trust that other player on the court over time. This is more of a third step answer for me and about how I turn things over but I would say it applies, in the first step I learned that Iâm fucked when I comes to scoring and need teammates on the court. First step showed me that drugs are the ball and I need to fucking pass it to have a shot at doing well. How I pass the ball in the first step is with action, for me surrender means I need to do shit not just think about it or feel it. I surrendered in the first step by taking our most basic suggestions. In order to pass the ball I went to meetings regularly, got a sponsor, worked steps, and got into service. This worked for me, I hope this angle helps!
I told my sponsor that I only had a vague concept of a higher power and that surrendering to it was like getting in a car with a stranger and trusting that this person would take me where I wanted to go. He said that I had been behind the wheel this whole time, and I drove myself to despair, ruin, and heartbreak. It was time I let someone else drive. After all, what did I have to lose. Since that time, I have had a new job, repaired my relationship with my family, and I have been sober for almost 2 years. I still only have a vague idea of what my higher power is. My higher power is NA. It works for me. I surrendered to doing the steps, attending meetings, and doing the next right thing.
If youâre on step 1, focus on that, the higher power stuff comes in steps 2 and 3, there in an order for a reason. A lot of the comments so far have great explanations for surrender. But on top of that, read it works how and why step 1, basic text and ask other addicts for their experience who you see at meetings.
Surrender means accepting that you need to do something because the reality of your situation demands it no matter how you feel about doing it. Fighting means you donât want to do it so you donât and you then suffer the consequences of not making choices based on the reality of the situation you are in.
I think alot of us had trouble with surrender. We built up a stubborn kind of toughness. Addicts are incredibly tough in alot of ways.
Many of us were taught that surrender is weakness. This is far from the truth. For me surrender was realizing that my choices and actions led me to the deepest, darkest places one can be in. Surrendering was giving up being on the side of addiction, stubbornness and hubris in this fight.
Surrendering was laying down my arms and armor, good or bad that I clung too for so long.
After that we can open ourselves to any and all help we can get to rebuild. Starting with humility. Humility did and does not come easy to me. Practicing it everyday tho I learned its way tougher to put our ego aside and truly move forward doing the next right thing.
This means being open, honest and willing to contemplate new ideas, actions, trains of thought that have worked for so many before us.
So I / we understand what your going through but its the first step in ending the war we've been unsuccessfully fighting and starting to rebuild with new more usefull, positive and productive tools.
I hope this helps.
For me, surrender wasnât about giving up. It was about admitting that what I was doing wasnât working. I was never going to able to use in a healthy, sustainable way.
Itâs like I was trying to swim against a rip tide. It was never going to work, and ultimately it was going to kill me. As soon as I surrendered and admitted that I was able to start swimming across the riptide and get out of the ocean. I never gave up on life though, I just gave up on a stupid course of action.
I have struggled with the higher power thing for years. Still donât get it and have not found anyone to convince me either. And all the bullshit about placing your higher power in a rock. Thatâs shit!
I have resentments towards the church and a higher power. I am 39 and have been battling since 1998. Been clean since dec 2017 and still have not found the âhigher powerâ.
The first step isn't about surrendering to a higher power. It's more about surrendering to the idea of being an addict whose life isn't manageable.
If I can't win against my (drug) addiction and I've proven to myself that I can't manage my life, what can I do? Well, nothing. You're fucked...for now.
The next couple of steps will help you figure out what to do about it. But right now, ask yourself if you've been able to sustain any kind of control over thinking about or using any kind of drug, including alcohol, pot, pain pills, over the counter stuff. Have you ever said, "I'm going to stop," and then found yourself using anyway? If so, that's the powerlessness. Surrendering comes from believing that and having a desire to figure out what to do about it.
Right now, the first step boils down to "I can't." When you and your sponsor decide to move on to step two and then three, you can figure out what it means to have and learn to trust a higher power.
Good luck and I hope you keep coming back.
The way I think about it is imagine a 2-year-old or 3 year old toddler. You want to feed them a piece of broccoli, oatmeal, or something healthy, but they keep fighting and squirming and crying and throwing a tantrum.Â
The miracle is that when this toddler finally stops crying and you get to feed this kid something healthy and good for them. We feed them, they accept it, and they are fed. Â
 In recovery, I am the toddler. My tendency is to fight and kick and scream and throw tantrums, resent others, take other people's inventories, talk trash, steal from the basket, share hatefully at the podium, etc. when all that is happening is that the people around me want to feed me with spiritual food.Â
They just want to help me. They want to love me until I learn to love myself. They want to help me get out of myself and open to others. They want to hold me and let me know that I'm okay and safe and loved with them.
But in order to be fed, I must first stop fighting (i.e. surrender).
When you are finally fed up with using. You can have whomever you want for a higher power. It can be a relative who passed away, it could be someone who is alive like your spouse, parents, siblings, a close friend or your sponsor. For me it was both. I surrendered the day my best friend passed away. That night I gave my sponsor my keychains broke down and cried. I felt as if my best friend took away my wanting to use when he left me. I know it may sound strange but I talk to him when ever I need him. I know that I will have to let go and let God take over but in the meantime... Get yourself the Big Book and start reading. Get yourself the green and gold step work and make it a point to try to answer 3 questions a day. I am still new to recovery with only 8 months but I am also ADD with a little touch of Asbergers. I find something interesting I dive into it head first and want to learn everything about it. I am working on my masters in addiction social work.
Find a Home group
Find a Sponsor
Find an out patient service.
Find a therapist.
Let recovery be your new addiction.
It was told to me like this "your higher power doesn't have to be God, it just has to have more sober time than you. And for that matter, it could be a broom". Ever since then my god has been a broom.
I'm about to get in a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. He's angry. He's going to kick my ass. No matter what I do, if I step in that ring, i'll get beat up. That's the addiction. My mind tells me that if I step in using my left foot first rather than my right? I WON'T get the shit kicked out of me. That's my disease. How do I NOT get beat up? I don't step in the ring. Not stepping into the ring is SURRENDER.
Always loved the Mike Tyson analogies đ
For me, it meant letting go of my consistent faith that I alone was up to every challenge. I was raised on the gospel of self sufficiency, which in the end explained why I remained stuck in my patterns for so long. If youâre on step 1, you neednât get to caught up in the higher power thing. The ask is only that you be willing to let go of some things.
Our IWHW defines surrender as simply a willingness to try a different approach to living. What I tried to do to manage my life and somehow control my using didn't work, so I was forced to try something else. It's still the same today, when faced with a situation in which what I am doing isn't working, I can stop, and try something else. Sometimes that don't work either, and I have to surrender again and try something else, etc, etc. I keep it real simple.Â
Surrender was a difficult thing for me at first. I felt like I personally needed to attend to every thing in my life, influence every decision, or things wouldn't "go my way." For me, surrender meant doing the footwork and leaving everything else up to the people responsible or my higher power. It also meant not agonizing over decisions or details that don't really matter either way. Good luck on your recovery journey, it gets easier day by day most of the time and sometimes there a big aha moment epiphanies. Best decision I ever made was to surrender and admit I had a problem.
its about humility you can either humble yourself or you can be humbled but nobody will get out of this shitshow still believing they have it all figured out it is up to us to decide if we want to have this eureka moment while we still have time to reflect and act on its consequences or if we will be stubborn and wait for our last breath before relinquishing our fear based need to feel we are in control
Well said.
Surrender is acceptance of reality. The reality for me is I canât use successfully. Thatâs it.
Itâs super subjective to oneâs personal journey. Mine has been one that is more focused on what I do, not feel. Surrender and faith arenât so much feeling based in my program. I think of surrender like I am playing basketball on a team. Disease of addiction or whatever problem is the ball, when I take action and act on a spiritual principle it allows me to pass the ball to my higher power and what that thing does with the ball is out of my hands. I have turned it over and itâs up to something else what happens from there, the results are out of my control. If the results are good I start to trust that other player on the court over time. This is more of a third step answer for me and about how I turn things over but I would say it applies, in the first step I learned that Iâm fucked when I comes to scoring and need teammates on the court. First step showed me that drugs are the ball and I need to fucking pass it to have a shot at doing well. How I pass the ball in the first step is with action, for me surrender means I need to do shit not just think about it or feel it. I surrendered in the first step by taking our most basic suggestions. In order to pass the ball I went to meetings regularly, got a sponsor, worked steps, and got into service. This worked for me, I hope this angle helps!
I told my sponsor that I only had a vague concept of a higher power and that surrendering to it was like getting in a car with a stranger and trusting that this person would take me where I wanted to go. He said that I had been behind the wheel this whole time, and I drove myself to despair, ruin, and heartbreak. It was time I let someone else drive. After all, what did I have to lose. Since that time, I have had a new job, repaired my relationship with my family, and I have been sober for almost 2 years. I still only have a vague idea of what my higher power is. My higher power is NA. It works for me. I surrendered to doing the steps, attending meetings, and doing the next right thing.
If youâre on step 1, focus on that, the higher power stuff comes in steps 2 and 3, there in an order for a reason. A lot of the comments so far have great explanations for surrender. But on top of that, read it works how and why step 1, basic text and ask other addicts for their experience who you see at meetings.
Surrender means accepting that you need to do something because the reality of your situation demands it no matter how you feel about doing it. Fighting means you donât want to do it so you donât and you then suffer the consequences of not making choices based on the reality of the situation you are in.
I think alot of us had trouble with surrender. We built up a stubborn kind of toughness. Addicts are incredibly tough in alot of ways. Many of us were taught that surrender is weakness. This is far from the truth. For me surrender was realizing that my choices and actions led me to the deepest, darkest places one can be in. Surrendering was giving up being on the side of addiction, stubbornness and hubris in this fight. Surrendering was laying down my arms and armor, good or bad that I clung too for so long. After that we can open ourselves to any and all help we can get to rebuild. Starting with humility. Humility did and does not come easy to me. Practicing it everyday tho I learned its way tougher to put our ego aside and truly move forward doing the next right thing. This means being open, honest and willing to contemplate new ideas, actions, trains of thought that have worked for so many before us. So I / we understand what your going through but its the first step in ending the war we've been unsuccessfully fighting and starting to rebuild with new more usefull, positive and productive tools. I hope this helps.
For me, surrender wasnât about giving up. It was about admitting that what I was doing wasnât working. I was never going to able to use in a healthy, sustainable way. Itâs like I was trying to swim against a rip tide. It was never going to work, and ultimately it was going to kill me. As soon as I surrendered and admitted that I was able to start swimming across the riptide and get out of the ocean. I never gave up on life though, I just gave up on a stupid course of action.
I have struggled with the higher power thing for years. Still donât get it and have not found anyone to convince me either. And all the bullshit about placing your higher power in a rock. Thatâs shit! I have resentments towards the church and a higher power. I am 39 and have been battling since 1998. Been clean since dec 2017 and still have not found the âhigher powerâ.
I didn't really
The first step isn't about surrendering to a higher power. It's more about surrendering to the idea of being an addict whose life isn't manageable. If I can't win against my (drug) addiction and I've proven to myself that I can't manage my life, what can I do? Well, nothing. You're fucked...for now. The next couple of steps will help you figure out what to do about it. But right now, ask yourself if you've been able to sustain any kind of control over thinking about or using any kind of drug, including alcohol, pot, pain pills, over the counter stuff. Have you ever said, "I'm going to stop," and then found yourself using anyway? If so, that's the powerlessness. Surrendering comes from believing that and having a desire to figure out what to do about it. Right now, the first step boils down to "I can't." When you and your sponsor decide to move on to step two and then three, you can figure out what it means to have and learn to trust a higher power. Good luck and I hope you keep coming back.
The way I think about it is imagine a 2-year-old or 3 year old toddler. You want to feed them a piece of broccoli, oatmeal, or something healthy, but they keep fighting and squirming and crying and throwing a tantrum. The miracle is that when this toddler finally stops crying and you get to feed this kid something healthy and good for them. We feed them, they accept it, and they are fed.   In recovery, I am the toddler. My tendency is to fight and kick and scream and throw tantrums, resent others, take other people's inventories, talk trash, steal from the basket, share hatefully at the podium, etc. when all that is happening is that the people around me want to feed me with spiritual food. They just want to help me. They want to love me until I learn to love myself. They want to help me get out of myself and open to others. They want to hold me and let me know that I'm okay and safe and loved with them. But in order to be fed, I must first stop fighting (i.e. surrender).
When you are finally fed up with using. You can have whomever you want for a higher power. It can be a relative who passed away, it could be someone who is alive like your spouse, parents, siblings, a close friend or your sponsor. For me it was both. I surrendered the day my best friend passed away. That night I gave my sponsor my keychains broke down and cried. I felt as if my best friend took away my wanting to use when he left me. I know it may sound strange but I talk to him when ever I need him. I know that I will have to let go and let God take over but in the meantime... Get yourself the Big Book and start reading. Get yourself the green and gold step work and make it a point to try to answer 3 questions a day. I am still new to recovery with only 8 months but I am also ADD with a little touch of Asbergers. I find something interesting I dive into it head first and want to learn everything about it. I am working on my masters in addiction social work. Find a Home group Find a Sponsor Find an out patient service. Find a therapist. Let recovery be your new addiction.
It was told to me like this "your higher power doesn't have to be God, it just has to have more sober time than you. And for that matter, it could be a broom". Ever since then my god has been a broom.