“Surrender At Detour”

After coming to believe in a power “greater than ourselves,” we were gently asked to “turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.”

The word most commonly associated with this step is “surrender.” “Yielding,” “submitting,” and “resigning” are all synonyms of “surrender,” but they all imply a giving in to self-pressuring, or another’s insistence. Surrender or relinquishing (our will) is a gentle action of our own to give up controlling our destinies.

God waits very patiently as we alcoholics thrash around in our self-inflicted pain and dramas, fighting with a vengeance to keep the control. We eventually grow tired as all of our willful energies placed into controlling, drain us of any motivation for living—except to live to drink.

We reached a fork in the road: one path was a continuation of the same road with which we were familiar—it was highly treacherous, with death-defying conditions at every turn. They were know conditions; and we could deal with them…or so we thought. There were know conditions; and we could deal with them… or so we thought. There have been those of us who, when we reached that fork in the road, through the fog we could barely make out a “ROAD CLOSED—TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK. USE DETOUR.” The DETOUR was the other choice at the fork in the road.

Upon venturing down this road, we soon saw that this road was a tunnel of horrors, moreso than the “closed” road. A badly weathered sign, almost hidden from view, gave hope, yet instilled fear of the unknown in the trembling traveler:

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