Fear, Control, and the Illusion of Self-Reliance in Recovery

When I first got sober, I honestly believed I could think my way into staying sober. I figured if I just tried hard enough, stayed disciplined enough, and controlled every detail of my life, I’d be fine. I didn’t see anything wrong with that approach. After all, relying on myself had been my default setting for years. Asking for help wasn’t something I did. Admitting fear wasn’t something I did. Surrender wasn’t something I did. I trusted only one person to manage my life—me.

The problem was, self-reliance in recovery didn’t work any better than self-reliance in my drinking. But I didn’t figure that out quickly. It took a painful stretch of white-knuckling sobriety, a lot of anxiety, and a lot of pretending I was doing better than I actually was. Looking back, it’s obvious: my dependence on self wasn’t strength. It was fear in disguise. And I had a lot of fear.

Fear showed up in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it looked like worrying about things that hadn’t even happened yet. Other times it looked like trying to control outcomes, conversations, or people. And sometimes it showed up as me acting like I was totally fine when I wasn’t. Fear in sobriety can be sneaky like that. It doesn’t always look like shaking and sweating. Sometimes it looks like perfectionism, or overthinking, or refusing to let anyone get too close.

When fear takes over, my first instinct is to manage everything myself. That’s where the illusion of control AA talks about really hits home. I thought I had control, but all I had was tension. I was gripping everything so tightly that I didn’t have room for anything else—not peace, not support, not growth.

AA describes this internal condition as the spiritual malady and fear that drives us. For a long time, I didn’t understand that phrase. But as meetings piled up and I listened to people share honestly, I started to see what it meant. My problem wasn’t just the drinking. My problem was the way I reacted to life when I wasn’t drinking. My fear made me want to run the show. My belief that I had to handle everything myself kept me isolated. And isolation is a dangerous neighborhood for someone like me.

One thing the Big Book says landed hard with me: “Self-reliance failed us.” At first, that sounded dramatic. Failed? Really? But the more I looked at my life, the more I saw it was true. Self-reliance told me I didn’t need to reach out when I was struggling. Self-reliance told me I could manage my drinking on my own — even when I couldn’t. Self-reliance told me that I could think my way out of problems created by my thinking. It was a closed loop that always led back to the same conclusion: try harder.

But trying harder was the wrong tool for the job. What I needed was surrender — something AA describes in Step Three. Step One showed me I was powerless. Step Two opened the door to believing in something greater. But Step Three taught me that winning in recovery meant letting go of the very thing I had always relied on: my own will.

That idea terrified me at first. The thought of handing over control felt like giving up. But what I eventually saw was that I wasn’t giving up control — I was giving up the illusion of it. That’s what self-will in recovery really is: a belief that I know what’s best, even when my best thinking nearly killed me.

Letting go didn’t happen in some dramatic moment. It happened slowly, through small actions that felt uncomfortable at first. Calling someone instead of convincing myself I was fine. Admitting fear when my instinct was to hide it. Asking for guidance instead of forcing an answer. These were the seeds of surrender. And little by little, they started to grow.

In early recovery, I was surprised by how much relief came from simply telling the truth. Fear doesn’t have much room to operate when honesty is in the room. When I shared what was actually going on inside me, the pressure to control everything eased. Other alcoholics helped me see where my thinking was getting twisted. They pointed out when I was gripping too tightly. They reminded me that letting go in sobriety wasn’t laziness — it was alignment with a Higher Power.

That’s the heart of the AA surrender principle. It’s not about becoming passive. It’s about becoming willing. Willing to take suggestions. Willing to turn things over. Willing to trust that I don’t have to manage every detail of life. Willing to believe that maybe, just maybe, I’m not the highest power in the universe.

As I practiced this new way of living, I discovered something surprising: surrender didn’t make my life smaller. It made it lighter. I wasn’t carrying everything around anymore. I wasn’t moving through the world braced for impact. I wasn’t trying to outthink problems. I was dealing with life as it came instead of trying to engineer my way through it.

This shift also changed my relationship with my Higher Power. I used to think God was supposed to help me achieve my plans. Now I see that a Higher Power helps me let go of the plans that were never mine to carry. That’s what higher power reliance feels like. It’s not dramatic or mystical. It’s steady, simple, quiet. It shows up in small decisions and tiny pauses. It shows up in the willingness to say, “I don’t know what to do, but I’m willing to be shown.”

Freedom in sobriety doesn’t come from getting everything under control. It comes from releasing the need to control everything at all. It comes from trusting help. It comes from recognizing fear for what it is. It comes from honesty. It comes from surrender. And it comes from connection — the antidote to isolation, the cure for self-will, and the reminder that I don’t have to walk any of this alone.

Recovery taught me something I didn’t know for most of my life: relying on myself created the very chaos I was trying to avoid. Relying on a Higher Power created the peace I didn’t think was possible.

There’s lots of AA meetings available to attend in-person or virtually. If you’re struggling with drinking, seek out the help you need, you can’t do it on your own. I know I couldn’t do it on my own and still can’t.

Find a sponsor that will take you through the steps as outlined in the book. You’ll see more of the truth about who you are and eventually it’ll change your life.

Change Your Truth, Change Your Life.

Haler Smith