Step 3: Pouring Out

How does one listen for the still, small voice of G-d? This is the question of Step 3 and the one I asked the cards when trying to understand how to approach it. As a reminder, here is the text of Step 3 from Alcoholics Anonymous¹

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of G-d as we understood Him [sic].

To quote the Big Book, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.”² Turning one’s live and will over to a Higher Power is hard enough, but knowing what that Higher Power wants is even more difficult still. It was with this mindset that I approached today’s reading on Step 3.

Step 2: Fire and Faith

Welcome back! This time let’s explore a reading for Step 2. For reference, the text of Step 2 (as laid out by Alcoholics Anonymous) is below:

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

As alluded to by the chapter on Step 2 in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions by Alcoholics Anonymous, this step is a sticking point for many. I want to refocus the conversation about Higher Powers away from belief or disbelief, but to what it means to work with the Tarot in recovery. Working with the Tarot implies a certain level of believe in something talking to us through the cards, even if that something is merely the randomness of the universe. If there were no meaning in the Tarot, there would be no point in trying to interpret the cards.

A Reading for Step 1

Welcome to the first post of Recovery Tarot. I hope to use this space to document some of my Tarot readings connected to 12-step work and to deepen my understanding of how my Higher Power works in my life. While this a personal interpretation of both the cards and sobriety, I will do my best to be inclusive of other understandings on Tarot and recovery.

I won’t offer a full qualification here, but at the time of writing I am coming up on seven years of sobriety from alcohol, largely thanks to AA. That said, I white-knuckled it for years before the program truly took hold. Since then, recovery spaces such as AA and Recovery Dharma have been essential components of my spirituality and recovery. I also participate in organized religion, going to services on occasion and do my best maintain a prayer practice, though I find regular prayer is challenging with my neurodivergence.