The Third Step has been the hardest and most confusing for me. It would have been much easier had I better understood and practiced the first two Steps from the start.

For two years I had been desperate for a solution to my aberrant sexual behavior — in my case, cruising for and using prostitutes five nights a week for six to eight hours a night while traveling as a salesman. I saw a psychiatrist; he said, “Just stop.” You can imagine how well that worked. Then I stumbled across a book on sex addiction in the biography section of a bookstore. I learned in 60 seconds of skimming — I had to look; after all, the book mentioned sex on the cover — what I was and how I could finally get help and stop. It was a biography — mine.

For the next 11 months, I worked the first three Steps the best I could. And they really helped. There was no S-fellowship in my small town, just a sympathetic, wise and supportive priest at my church. I read lots of books on sex addiction. They were all sort of therapeutic in nature. My goal was to stop my aberrant sexual behavior and get on with life.

During my “so-called” recovery, I remained fixated on getting ahead and measuring up. Use this 12-Step thing, get back to normal sexual behavior — i.e., acceptable lusting — and get back on the ladder of success.

First Step? Piece of cake. I knew I had been living in hell with the prostitutes. Fix that and my life would be real manageable.

Second Step? Heck, I knew God led me to that book. Of course God will keep me sober. And I taught Sunday school, too.

Third Step? Well, I turned all my sexual acting out over to God. That’s what the Third Step means, doesn’t it? I moved to a new town, found a small SA group and hit the ground running. I had been sober for four years. Those others? Bunch of slippers, the poor guys. Sponsor? Nice to get some well-meaning advice now and then. I was pretty unteachable. I was “sober.”

But my work-life was hell. I had been through five jobs in five years. Something was wrong. Belatedly I realized the Third Step says, “turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Will? Lives? Pretty all-inclusive language. It didn’t say to turn over just sex or lust. Well, I tried turning it all over. I tried hard. It didn’t work. I spent two years doing this.

Then I went to an open AA meeting and heard some real recovery. I spoke to someone who had what I wanted. He said, “If you’re stuck on a Step, that means you didn’t work an earlier Step correctly. You have to back up a Step. The Steps are in order for a reason.” Naturally I argued and disagreed. But his words sunk in.

I began to see that God and I agreed on just one thing — sobriety. Other than that, I didn’t trust him. I saw him as judging, distant, disappointed — curiously, just as I saw my parents. He didn’t want me to succeed. He wanted to punish me. I could never get straight with God.

Of course I couldn’t work the Third Step! Who could turn their life over to a hostile power? I tried to come up with a new understanding of my Higher Power, but couldn’t. So back up another Step. At this point, Steps One and Two blur together. In essence, my value system — “measure up, be the best, do it yourself, etc.” — was really my Higher Power. My unmanageable approach to life, my ego — which was my Higher Power. I had two Higher Powers — the real thing for sobriety and a me-puppet for everything else. Giving up sex and lust was almost easy in comparison to giving up this “power driver” approach, but I had to.

With time, grace and help from others, I have come to see my real problem was me and the acting out was just one manifestation of a deeper, much more pervasive spiritual disorder. I have to fix that. Every day.

I have come to see that a real Higher Power — the same one that kept me sober — would help me with everything else too, but in his way, not mine. And to my surprise, his way is better than anything I come up with. Now it’s a lot easier to surrender everything. I’m still lost and confused a lot, but that’s okay, God is navigating. I just have to follow him.