I effed up my life royally. I couldn't cope with drinking. I couldn't cope with some other behaviours, either. Circuits burned out. I couldn't cope sober. I couldn't cope with people, the past, the future, anything.
So I surrendered my life to God. That means giving it up. If you surrender your ticket, you no longer have your ticket. If the dog surrenders the bone it has been chewing, the bone is taken away.
I never get my life back. I get given a life, which is not my life. It's God's life. That means I get given time every day to serve God.
I hear a lot of people fretting about or concerned with their career, with love, with sex, with family, with all sorts of things. They haven't surrendered. They think these things are theirs. They're not.
I work, I live with someone, I hang out with some people, I do some things. God gives me things to do and shows me how to do them. But they're not my things. They're not my concern.
Step Three takes me to Heaven. I'm temporarily seconded back to earth. I could be recalled any time. It does not and cannot matter to me when and under what circumstances.
This might sound radical and extreme. It is both.
But what else could turning your will and life over to God really mean?
The wording of Step Three is not ambiguous.