Willing to be Willing

Willing to be Willing

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation with Father Bill W. looks at an unusual word for many in recovery: obedience. Don’t worry, he knows it can sound stuffy or even a bit scary, and he has plenty of his own defiant streak to prove it. Speaking as an Episcopal priest sober since 1972, Father Bill links obedience to the heart of 12‑Step life, especially Steps 3 and 11.

He contrasts ego-driven living with a life guided by “a Power greater than ourselves”, asking whether people are genuinely turning their lives and wills over, or just giving lip service. Two Way Prayer sits right at the centre of this, as a daily practice of asking for guidance, listening, writing it down, and then actually following through. Drawing on Quaker mystic Thomas R.

Kelly’s essay *Holy Obedience*, he shares lines like Kelly’s call to “commit your lives in an unreserved obedience”, and reflects on how half measures might keep someone dry but leave them restless, irritable and discontent. He weaves in Francis Thompson’s “Hound of Heaven” and the idea that God is the one seeking us, not the other way round, which may land differently for anyone who’s spent years running.

You’ll hear a challenge to “limited conversion” – being sober but spiritually stuck – and an invitation to reignite that early recovery fire through simple, practical actions: short, repeated prayers such as “Your will, not mine, be done”, beginning where you are with whatever willingness you can muster, and getting up quickly after slips instead of drowning in shame.

With a mix of AA history, mystic writers, and very down-to-earth honesty, this session speaks to anyone who senses sobriety might be about far more than just not drinking. Where might “holy obedience” fit into your own recovery today?