Prayers
By Douglas W., (webservant@aascv.org)
”Prayer and meditation are our principal means of conscious contact with God.”
(Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg. 96)
If prayer feels awkward, confusing, or completely foreign to you right now, you’re in good company. That’s exactly where most of us started, myself included. Here’s how it has worked for me.
I pray every morning for the people on my to-do list. Some days it’s just checking a box. Other days it’s more direct and meaningful. I wish I were more consistent and that my prayers went deeper. I don’t always know how to make them more meaningful, but I keep practicing and trust God will help me get there.
When a friend is going through something hard, we pray together and wait for the results. I used to want God to answer in a very direct way. Time has taught me that my prayers for others are often most useful when God changes me instead. I become a better listener and more empathetic.
I have no power of my own, so I rely on God’s power. God can change things, including me, and that’s what prayer does.
A Quiet Practice That Changes the Day
Prayer can feel simple, complicated, awkward, powerful, or completely foreign, depending on where we are in recovery. When I pray with someone, do I close with “Amen,” or something less formal like “Thank you, God”? I used to overthink it. Over time I’ve learned to just be authentic. If someone is open to me praying with them, I show up as myself.
Some of us came to Alcoholics Anonymous with a strong faith already in place. That was me, but my confidence was low. God was not answering my prayers, so I ended up in AA. I later realized God required action from me. I had been treating God like some kind of genie. Others came in angry at God, suspicious of anything that felt like religion (which they rejected), or convinced that prayer, at best, was for other people. And some were just too worn down to care what anything was called. All of us knew we could not keep drinking, and we could not seem to live sober on our own power.
That is where A.A. prayer begins for many of us. Not in polished words. Not in perfect belief. Not even in comfort. It often begins with need. We land in enough pain that we become willing to change.
The Big Book says, “Lack of power, that was our dilemma” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 45). That sentence gives prayer its proper context. Prayer in A.A. is not decoration. It is not performance. It is not a way to sound spiritual in a meeting. It is one of the ways we reach toward the Power we lacked when our own resources failed us.
And if you are new, uncertain, or still resistant, that is all right. A.A. does not ask us to begin with a perfect understanding of God. In fact, the Big Book says, “Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another’s conception of God” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 46). That single idea has opened the door for countless alcoholics. We are invited to begin with “God as we understood Him,” not God as someone else demands we understand Him.
That matters, because prayer is not about winning a theological argument. It is about improving conscious contact, asking for help, and learning to live differently.
Prayer Begins With Willingness
In Step Three, we make “a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” The Twelve and Twelve describes this as the opening of a door. “There is only one key, and it is called willingness” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg. 34).
That is encouraging, because willingness is available even when certainty is not. I do not have to understand everything about God before I can pray. I do not have to feel deeply spiritual before I can ask for help. I do not even have to like the idea at first. I only need enough willingness to try.
The Big Book gives a similarly practical starting point: “Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 47). That question is gentle but direct. It does not demand that we leap from unbelief to perfect faith. It asks if we are willing to begin. For me, that was the starting point.
For many of us, that beginning is a short prayer said with gritted teeth: “Help me.” Or, “Please keep me sober today.” Or, “I don’t know if You’re there, but I’m willing.” That may not sound grand, but it is honest. And honest prayer is a good place to start.
Prayer is Connected to Action
One mistake I can make is treating prayer as a substitute for action. A.A. does not teach that. The Big Book is clear: “Now we need more action, without which we find that ‘Faith without works is dead’” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 76).
Prayer is woven into action. We pray for willingness, then we take the Step. We ask for direction, then we make the amends. We ask for freedom from resentment, then we discuss it honestly and look for our part. We ask to be useful, then we go help someone.
My first sponsor used to tell me that if I’m in a closet praying and I’m hungry, God isn’t going to slide hot dogs under the door. Getting up and making my own hot dog is my job.
This is one of the great safeguards in A.A. prayer. It keeps prayer from becoming an escape. I do not pray so I can avoid reality. I pray so I can meet reality with more honesty, courage, humility, and usefulness. The Seventh Step Prayer captures this well, more on that shortly.
Third Step Prayer
The Third Step Prayer sits in the Big Book right after the discussion of self-will, self-centeredness, and the decision to stop “playing God.” The Big Book says, “Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles,” and then explains that many of us had to quit trying to run the whole show ourselves.
The Third Step Prayer is not just a formal prayer we say once. It is a surrender prayer. It comes after the Big Book describes the problem of self-will, the idea that I can arrange life, people, outcomes, and even God to suit myself. That never worked for me. The Big Book says, “First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 62). That line gives the Third Step Prayer its power.
When I work with men, I tell them this isn’t just a prayer. It’s a contract with God. If they choose to drink again, the suffering that follows is a direct result of breaking that contract.
When I say, “God, I offer myself to Thee,” I am not asking God to bless my old plans. I am offering God my life, my thinking, my motives, and my usefulness. The prayer continues, “Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 63). For me, that is the heart of it. I am not just asking to feel better. I am asking to be freed from the self-centeredness that keeps me blocked from God, other people, and the life A.A. is trying to teach me.
Here is the Third Step Prayer in full, from the Big Book:
“God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 63)
Seventh Step Prayer
The Third Step Prayer opens the door, but I still have to walk through it. In the Big Book, the next sentence after the prayer says we “launched out on a course of vigorous action.” That action is Steps Four, Five, and Six: writing inventory, admitting the truth, and becoming willing. Only when we reach Step Seven does the Seventh Step Prayer make sense. I cannot honestly ask God to remove defects I have not yet named, admitted, and become willing to release.
The Seventh Step Prayer is not just asking God to “fix me.” It’s asking to partner with God in removing my shortcomings. First I have to admit to God that I have shortcomings. That admission is what opens the door for God to change me. One problem I have is wanting to hold onto my shortcomings, not because they serve me well, but because they’re familiar and comfortable. I lack faith that God wants something better for me, and I resist.
Spiritual change comes after I have done the work of Step Four, admitted the truth in Step Five, and become willing in Step Six. So Step Seven is where prayer becomes humble cooperation with God.
“My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do Your bidding.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 76)
Other Prayers
Besides the Third Step Prayer and Seventh Step Prayer, the Big Book contains a whole practical prayer pattern:
Pray for protection and care
Pray for freedom from resentment
Pray for fear to be removed
Pray for guidance
Pray for willingness
Pray before amends
Pray for patience, tolerance, kindliness, and love
Pray during daily review
Pray when agitated or doubtful
If you know me, I like to count things. I have a count from each chapter of the Big Book where prayers are mentioned. This is my list. Yours may be more or less, but whether your count matches mine is less important than knowing we’re paying attention to the prayers when we read them. In my Big Book, each of these mentions is highlighted in orange, and I draw a box around every name Bill W. used for God. This practice reminds me to slow down and pay attention to those sentences. Here is my count:
Chapter 1–Bill’s Story: 1
Chapter 5–How It Works: 9
Chapter 6–Into Action: 16
Chapter 11–A Vision for You: 1
Prayers in the Stories
I did not forget about the 42 stories after Chapter 11. I encourage you to read them and find the prayers yourself. It might be a helpful exercise. One story is especially worth mentioning. “Freedom From Bondage” appears in the Second, Third, and Fourth Editions of the Big Book. We will see whether it is included in the upcoming Fifth Edition. The story is attributed to Wynn Laws.
“In my prayers that morning I asked God to point out to me some way to be free of this resentment.” (Freedom From Bondage, pg. 551) Then she finds the practical prayer direction: “If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.” (Freedom From Bondage, pg. 552)
One Last Thought
The Big Book is spiritual in nature, and prayer runs through it. There’s an old saying that fits here: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The Big Book is a guidepost pointing us toward the Teacher. All we have to do is keep active, keep praying, and stay willing.