Surrender

Dreams

One other area that was troublesome to me was lustful dreams. I had heard that I am not responsible for my dreams and sometimes I would look forward to them just to relieve the pressure of my lust. I never felt good about that though.

Over time, I found that lustful dreams went away completely as I stopped stuffing myself with lust all day long. As I learned to let go of lust and stop letting it into me throughout the day, I could go for years without any sexual dreams at all – nor did I want them or need them for relief. The pressure went away once lust went away.

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Surrender is a word that is used a lot in 12-step meetings. They talk about surrendering our lives and wills to God in Step 3, for example. Here’s an analogy that has helped me to understand how surrender works. It has a lot to do with admitting the truth about my situation and letting someone who really knows what they’re doing be in charge.

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Supporting Recovery Through Phone Calls / Texts / Chats

It is helpful to get some phone numbers from people in the 12-step group that I can call or text throughout the week during triggers when I need a boost, and to build unity. Some groups have created group chats as well to serve as a mini instant meeting where people can connect and support each other.

Connecting in these ways also does other things. It increases my humility by admitting that I need help since the act of calling someone is an act of humility. It also defeats isolation. Isolation halts my progress. I need to connect with people instead of just being alone. It also, very importantly, destroys the shame I have around my addiction by helping me face the shame that keeps me in isolation. It also increases awareness of patterns that lead me to dangerous areas. Others can see where my blind spots are.

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Step 3

Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The verb in step 3 is not “surrender,” even though that’s what people talk about when they talk about step 3. The verb is “Made a decision.” A decision to do what? To turn my will and life over to the care of God. When I first got into addiction recovery, I found that there were a few things I could turn over to the care of God. So I did that. People often call this “surrender.” It seems that turning things over to the care of God, letting things go, and surrendering are similar, if not identical. It’s strange to come into a program where they tell me to surrender when I’ve been fighting for decades.

The Three Lists

I was talking to someone in my recovery group the other day, and they had been recently consumed with worry about a lot of things in their life and the following idea popped into my head to help with that. It had to do with emptying my head of all worries by writing them down and separating them into three lists. This idea comes from the three kinds of things mentioned in the serenity prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

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