What Does It Mean to "Let Go and Let God" in AA?

Get Help. Talk To Someone Now!

Call toll free to:

Find meetings near you
Discover online or in person meetings
Get 24 hour information on addiction

All calls are 100% confidential

Letting Go

If you have an alcohol use disorder, you know how challenging it can be not to drink. You may have tried to become entirely abstinent from alcohol unsuccessfully more than once. In fact, deciding or trying to stop drinking several times before finding sobriety is a clinical characteristic of alcohol use disorder.Trying to achieve and maintain sobriety alone may result in repeating this cycle.

Giving up trying to fix your problems on your own can be a difficult decision. Alcohol use disorder can be accompanied by feelings of isolation, unworthiness, and a negative sense of self.

You may feel a sense of shame, guilt, or failure because you have not yet become sober through sheer force of will. You may alternate between downplaying the problem and feeling overwhelmed, helpless, or even scared of the potential consequences of continued alcohol misuse.

Many of these emotions are common and normal. You have not failed, and your recovery has not reached a dead-end. You just need help.

It’s uncommon for individuals with a moderate to severe alcohol use disorder to manage the medical and behavioral measures required to stop using alcohol and stay sober without outside help. This may include medically supervised detox, inpatient or outpatient rehab, therapy, and peer support groups like AA.

Call 800-839-1686 Toll Free. Privacy Guaranteed. No Commitment.

Help is standing by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Letting God (Or Your Higher Power)

You may hear “God” used a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and quotes like “Let go and let God.” However, it is a myth that “God” refers to a Christian god only. That’s why many choose to replace “God” with “higher power.”

While the founders of AA identified as Christian and connected with the Christian god as their higher power, AA is not a religious organization today. For a Christ-centered experience, you may find Celebrate Recovery meetings meaningful.

Your higher power can refer to any loving deity, higher concept, or spiritual entity. This idea connects you with something greater than yourself and to a mental place where you can turn over your alcoholism, control, baggage, worries, and fears. In doing so, you free yourself from feeling overwhelmed and hopeless and begin to see the possibility of having a happy, sober life.

“Letting God” means accepting help from your higher power. You stop trying to live your plan for your life and instead agree to live the plan created for you by your higher power. In return, you start participating in activities that build your relationship with your higher power and move you forward in recovery, like meditation or prayer.

You may also spend more time on other recovery-focused activities as you come to understand that this serves your goal of long-term recovery and the hopeful, happy, and loving future your higher power would choose for you.

Connecting with your higher power might mean attending therapy or relapse prevention classes more consistently, volunteering through AA, attentively following your medication plan, better following the rules of your sober living home, and so on. These changes may feel less “spiritual” than prayer or meditation, but serve the same goal.

You may find that giving some control to your addiction treatment care team, AA sponsor, trusted sober loved ones, case manager, or other people who have your recovery in mind is also a form of “letting God.”

Call 800-839-1686 Toll Free. Privacy Guaranteed. No Commitment.

Help is standing by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Letting Go and Letting God While Working the 12 Steps

There are specific steps when working the 12 Steps of AA that facilitate the relationship between you and your higher power. These steps use humility as the foundation of your transformation on your recovery journey.

When you have an alcohol use disorder, you can become hyper-focused on your relationship with alcohol. Many individuals with alcohol addiction make detailed plans for how they will get more alcohol, spend significant time using alcohol, and find that the time necessary to recover from using alcohol takes away from other things in their lives.

This is another clinical criterion that can be used to diagnose an alcohol use disorder.

Expanding your circle of focus outside your alcohol use and yourself is a natural part of the recovery process, but not necessarily an easy change. This is where you cultivate a sense of humility. Humility allows you to admit powerlessness over your current alcohol use, surrender to your higher power, admit and work on the flaws you are responsible for, and tolerate the mistakes of others.

The 12 Steps of AA offer multiple opportunities to explore humility that allow you to:

Acknowledge your faults before a higher power
Appraise yourself honestly and share your moral inventory with another person
Make amends to those you have harmed when using alcohol, when possible
Ask for help from your higher power in daily activities

The 12 Steps are guidelines for personal and spiritual growth that you can work on at your own pace. When it comes to letting go and letting God, some steps are more directly related, like Step 1.

Step 1

“We Admitted We Were Powerless Over Alcohol—That Our Lives Had Become Unmanageable.”

Step 1 is the beginning of your relationship with a higher power. It’s when you realize that alcohol addiction is a complex medical condition that can develop related to multiple factors, including genetic influence, environment, and history. You recognize how alcohol alters the brain and makes it extremely difficult to quit drinking without help.

You open yourself up to a power beyond yourself, including your higher power, evidence-based addiction recovery methods, and qualitative principles that have helped others find sobriety—and confess your need for help.

Step 2

“Came to Believe a Power Greater Than Ourselves Could Restore Us to Sanity.”

Albert Einstein’s quote which has been accepted as conventional wisdom, states that, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The chaos and “insanity” associated with alcohol use disorder include repeating behaviors even when they cause harm.

The disease of alcohol addiction makes it difficult to stop the cycle of using alcohol, including relapsing after a period of sobriety. Finding strength, support, and empowerment in your higher power through Step 2 can provide the mental component that is vital to feeling motivated and hopeful in early recovery.

Belief alone is not enough, however. You must also participate in activities that support recovery and further your relationship with your higher power.

Step 3

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

Step 3 is the definition of “letting go and letting God.” The effects of alcohol on your neurochemistry may mean that willpower alone will not produce lasting sobriety. You have decided to abstain from alcohol, but now must ask for help from your higher power and others.

Once you’ve made this decision, you can identify how to turn your will and life over to your higher power and other trustworthy professionals and people who can help you navigate recovery.

Many of the other 12 Steps focus on concrete ways to do this. You make amends, admit your wrongs, and continue to evaluate yourself. You may incorporate step work into your daily life, including repeating steps when needed.

Step 11

“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”

Eventually, you’ll reach Step 11, which continues your daily walk with your higher power.

Some studies show that spirituality correlates with AA participation and abstinence from alcohol. Specifically, a reduction in drinking was seen among those who used spiritual practices early in the 12 Step process.

Research does not necessarily indicate that religion or spirituality has a causal relationship with more positive recovery outcomes.

However, some research suggests that the approach in AA of connecting to a higher power has potential behavioral benefits that translate into better recovery outcomes, such as:

Enhancing motivation and behavioral coping
Improving the ability to reframe stressful events or life experiences
Heightening cognitive vigilance in a manner that reduces the risk of relapse
Creating a sense of belonging within oneself, an identified religious or spiritual community, and the AA community
Improving perceived mood and increasing how often emotions like joy, compassion, love, and forgiveness are experienced
Allowing for spiritual exploration beyond AA, which provides additional psychological benefits that reinforce ongoing recovery-related changes

Benefits of Letting Go and Letting God

There is a reason 73% of substance use treatment facilities in America incorporate a spiritual element, like the 12 Steps, that encourage a relationship between you and a higher power. They have found that faith, or religious or spiritual connections, aid in substance use prevention and recovery.

Additional benefits of faith found in multiple research studies include the following:

Reduces the risks of substance misuse
Creates greater resilience when facing stressors
Facilitates healing
Promotes positive mental and physical health
Contributes to higher rates of recovery

There is an essential factor to consider when incorporating a spiritual component in recovery. You can’t simply “let go and let God” in your mind.

Yes, you are getting your thoughts aligned with the concept of surrendering and trusting your higher power. But it doesn’t stop there. What you do after letting go and letting God will help you achieve and maintain sobriety. In the words of another AA saying, “nothing changes if nothing changes.”

What to Do After Letting Go and Letting God

“Pray for potatoes, then pick up a hoe.”

This is another of AA sayings, meaning once you surrender to a higher power, that’s when the real work begins. These are activities that make you feel better, draw you closer to your higher power, and positively impact recovery outcomes.

Much research has been conducted on the connection between the mind, body, and spirit. Your mental health impacts physical and spiritual health, and vice versa. Mindfulness, meditation, and even mantras are activities that can enhance your progress in recovery.

Finding ways to practice spirituality leads to positive emotions, which can contribute to positive health outcomes.

Qualitative studies have linked spirituality to improved ability to:

Cope with adversities
Feel happier
Have hope and feel optimism
Find meaning and purpose
Feel a sense of control

Fortunately, there are ways you can learn more about spirituality in recovery from alcoholism and what it means to let go and let God.

In some cases, you may find that letting go and letting God may mean accepting that you need additional addiction treatment services to find and maintain sobriety. Call 800-948-8417 Sponsored today to discuss addiction services that can help you take your next step in recovery.