I have listened to Fr. David’s sermon on Step Three twice now, along with giving a sneak preview listen to Step Four, which is closely aligned. It seems to me that as one approaches healing and a change of life, these two steps are the most daunting. At least, they seem that way for me, for I have come to realize that I have been, all my life, a world-class control freak. Steps Three and Four are specifically about giving up control. Not a little bit – everything! There is no trying to hold back just a bit of control for yourself. In AA I heard the expression, “You can’t help an alcoholic until he realizes he is at the bottom of the lake and is watching his last bubble of air head to the surface.” That’s a pretty clear picture of coming to realize you are in deep kimchee and either do something or die. Of course, the “do something” in this case is to let go of everything that you have been grasping with both hands, thinking that whatever it is will save you. It is an act of trust to release, float to the surface, and let Christ take you in His arms and guide you to shore. It is, ironically enough, doing by not doing anything. Just trust.

Trust. This is where it gets dicey for those who are addicted. Even in our addiction, we like think that we are somehow in control of a life which, as seen by those who are in the circle of family and friends, is completely out of control! How many times does the addict say to himself, “I can stop whenever I want to.” or “I’m okay.” It’s a lie that makes us feel a small amount of control. For many who have been hurt in life, control is everything, for lacking control, especially as a child, has been the source of our pain. Consciously or unconsciously, we say to ourselves, “That will never happen to me again because I am going to be in control from now on.” Trust becomes an especially hard concept for those of us who have been repeatedly crapped on by others. There is an extreme guardedness by which we protect ourselves, and this even extends to putting it all in the hands of God. I know that I, like many other people, thought I was surrendered to God in all things, yet having gone through some rather difficult situations in the last couple of years, I have found that my surrender was far from complete and total. It is a most painful discovery.

When I listened to Step Three for the second time, a lot of thoughts came to my mind and grabbed my phone and recorded them as a stream of consciousness. For better or for worse, here is what I said, unedited and quite raw:

“I’m listening to the Third Step today. I am reminded of something that I heard a long time ago when I was going to meetings at Day Seven, a ministry for those with sexual addictions and issues. Anger has its basis in fear. I think that’s very true for me. I think I am very angry because I am afraid of life and people. I have been spat on and shit on all my life, starting at an early age with the kids who picked on me in school. And now, every time something rotten happens to me, I look to God and say within myself, “WHY did you let that happen to me?” as if I alone should be the one person in life who does not have bad stuff happen to him.

It’s a trust issue, and I think that really from the bottom of my heart, I have to say that I lack trust in God as well as in everybody else. There is a part of me that expects to be mistreated and taken advantage of. I’m going to be hurt. I’m going to be lied to, like Elizabeth (my wife) lied to me. She came onto the dating site we were on and aggressively pursued me, acting like “Oh, Eduardo, I love you. I want to marry you.” Well, she no more loved me than she loves a scorpion. What she loved and wanted was the security of my money. If I had kept my stupid mouth shut and not mentioned having a large monthly disbursement from my trust fund she probably would have dropped me like a hot potato once she believed I was just a poor schmuck looking for a mate.

The world is full of liars and my life seems to be full of liars. I’m having a bad day today because as I think of it and ponder all that Step Three has spoken of, I realize that I have some serious anger regarding Elizabeth and the way she just keeps criticizing and nagging at me. She is kind of symptomatic of everything that is wrong with my life, from being a young kid right up to now. I have not had anybody who really cared for me. No close friends. Family was cold and distant. And it has made me very suspicious of life and even of God Himself. No one takes care of me except me, and I did a really piss-poor job of doing that. Drugs, wild parties, hedonistic living, sexual immorality, drunkenness, stupid decisions. I haven’t done a good job at all of taking care of myself. I became my own worst enemy. The world sucks and I don’t trust it. You know why I am angry? Because I see other people getting good things in life and I’m getting shit on. I’m tired of it.

These are my feelings. They are not necessarily true. I’m just doing a stream of consciousness thinking right now, talking out loud, expressing the sorrows of my heart. I’m mad because I missed so much in life. And you know what? I’m happiest – this is kind of interesting to think about – I’m happiest when I am alone and have no one to bother me and I’m enjoying the world around me. Looking at flowers, trees, beautiful blue sky, a lovely day, fishing pole in hand, just being by myself not having to interact with any other bastard in the world. So these are some interesting insights. And it shows me what I have to do because I have come to a point where I need to say and believe that God is trustworthy no matter what happens.

This is the challenge I have given sort of a half-hearted assent to, saying, “Well, Lord, I turn my will over to you.” but really, I have not completely done this because that would mean that no matter what happens, I would not get angry, would indulge myself in rage. No matter what happens, I would be calm and really believe that God is good and in control of all things for my good. I would trust Him and trust that everything is going to turn out alright. And I have to admit that I am not at that point right now as I listen to and think about what Father David has said about Zacchaeus.”

So that’s what I wrote. Ugly, isn’t it? And while parts of it are true, those parts in which I speak of my anger, which is my addiction, and the reasons for it, the rest is a load of garbage. When you read this, you see the innermost thoughts and feelings of a man who has a lot of work to do on his heart and his outlook on life. There is a lot there that is just plain old wrong! But this is my struggle – I refuse to publicly whitewash it – and the honest reflection of what I am dealing with, especially with trust in the Lord.

You see, God has more than taken care of me, and I would need another whole blog page to go into detail of the many ways I can, if I am being honest, see that when things looked very bleak for me, the Lord stepped in, and things worked out for the good. I think that part of my healing will come as I deliberately take the time to recall these many events of His mercy to me, starting with rescuing me from the Fool’s Paradise of hedonistic living that was killing me. It was a great mercy to me, me who had spent years blaspheming His name, insulting Christians, and wanting nothing to do with God or the Christian faith. Yet Love kept coming after me, and if I am really honest about it, Love will continue to pursue me as I even now muddle along life, failing, confessing, getting up, and failing again. God’s love really is a love that has my best interests at heart. The problem for me, and for many of us, is that we have one way of thinking of what is best for us, and God says, “Uh, no, that will actually harm you in the long run.” So because we don’t get our way – what we think is best for us – we decide that God is not worthy of our trust.

That is a bad decision.