We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Now we get into it, the first god step! The big book writes, “Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this power?
“Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main objective is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself that will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about GOD.”
That usually makes an agnostic nervous. It talks about this power being greater than our being a god. Still, I think this puts some perspective on this second suggestion of A.A., that we are coming to believe in a power greater than ourselves. That means that the book written and the steps—the rest of the steps—will enable us to find that higher power, however that god might look.
I didn’t have a definition of god when I got to the rooms and this step. I didn’t grow up religious. All my ideas of religion were based on T.V. evangelists, Republican politicians, Christian hate groups, and the Middle East wars. I didn’t have a personal relationship with anything supernatural. I didn’t believe in it either. Never have. It just never made sense, nor did it ever feel important. It was just a crutch for people who were scared of death.
So, I didn’t have an idea of a god when my first sponsor asked me if I believed in anything. All I knew was that I didn’t have an answer. My life at 17 years old in a treatment center was not the life of a person too bright for god. What I did have was know that the people in A.A. who were sober believed in something, and they were not only not drinking anymore but living good, fulfilling lives. So, I felt that something was working for others so that it could work for me.
That’s it; that was my second step. I believed these people who were already at the meetings when I showed up had found something that worked for them, so I felt that. Even at my most atheist, I can’t argue that something isn’t there in those meetings. I believe that something was working for others.
I didn’t have to have a clear definition of a higher power. What is vital in that step isn’t what god is but what god does. People can get bogged down in the definition of god rather than focus on restoring sanity. What does that mean?
To understand this, we must understand what sanity means in this context. This is just the insanity of trying to drink one more time and how it will be different this time. We aren’t talking about mental or behavioral health issues here, and these need to be treated by professionals because the 12 steps aren’t going to solve clinical depression and the like. This is just talking about how we come out of a spree causing all kinds of wreckage and promising ourselves and others that we won’t drink again, and we drink again. That is insane.
We have tried to muscle our way, white-knuckling and gnashing our teeth, trying not to drink, and we do anyway. We sometimes put it down for a while and even feel better; we get healthier, we start to see the benefits of not drinking, but then we drink again. Sometimes, nothing causes us to try drinking again; we do. It isn’t a bad or even a good day; it’s just a typical day, and we can’t stop picking up a drink even if we can remember what it has done to us before.
Sometimes, we try to get a significant other who will save us, and we won’t drink like we did because we are now in love. Maybe even having a baby will make us think we can turn our lives around. Jobs, family members, new hobbies, and even religions will make us believe that we have hit the turning point, but we drink again. All of these things aren’t a power greater than ourselves.
So the question of step two is, will I be restored to sanity? Is this something that can happen? As I said before, this is what that power greater than ourselves can do. What god looks like or what book best represents their lore doesn’t matter, and this is important for someone who doesn’t know or believe in gods and can still take the steps to get the same result as the believers.
Even someone who has a strong faith in a higher power can not believe that a higher power will restore them to sanity. That helped me with this step: With a god or no god, will I be restored to sanity if I do these steps? Do I believe that? If I don’t, why? Whether I can be restored to sanity is more important than whether there is a god. Why let the definition be the hang-up when that isn’t the point?
If there’s no God, how does one begin this process? My experience is that I believed initially in G.O.D. or Group Of Drunks. I just believed that the room full of people in the meeting had something happen to them that could happen to me. They were restored to sanity. They weren’t thinking about drinking every day like I was. They were living lives full of challenges and gifts. I didn’t need to believe in anything more than that at step two to get to the next step. There is no need for any supernatural belief to believe something special is happening in those A.A. meetings.
Today, Step Two is a step I have returned to a lot. I fully believe that when I don’t feel good, I work my way backward through the steps until I find the one I hang up on. It is often step two, and I don’t believe I will be restored to sanity or must do it alone without the steps’ help. Even after several years of seeing that I have gotten through some of life’s toughest challenges, I have ended up on the other side sane and okay, but then I hit the next challenge, and I will dare to say it’s not going to work for me this time.
The problem isn’t that I don’t believe in God; I don’t believe I will be okay. With time, the second step becomes less about restoring my sanity in the power of choice in drink and more about having faith that I will be okay as long as I do a few simple things. One of the reasons it is so hard to put down the booze is that we don’t believe we will be okay, or the mystery of what will happen if we stop drinking is too scary to want to veer off the insanity of what is known.
Think what you want about Russell Brand, but his step one and two interpretations put the simplicity needed in these steps: step one: are you a bit fucked? Step two: Could you not be fucked? Could this work for you? It worked for others, so why couldn’t it work for you?
This is why listening for the similarities instead of the differences is so important. If we only see the differences in others, we will have a more challenging time believing this will work for us. I know that when I fall into the trap of feeling unique and isolated, it becomes harder to believe this whole thing will work for me.
When I just tune into what I relate to, then I become sure that I am on the right path and that I cannot be fucked. I have found that without a defined god or even believing in a conscious intelligence, I can be restored to sanity. I not only haven’t taken a drink for a long time, but I have found that have unfucked myself. I often believe I will be okay, even when everything is chaotic. That becomes a huge point in the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous: how do we match serenity with calamity? The second step is the starting point.
I also want to point out that while this step states that I came to believe in a higher power, it states in the twelfth step, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, helps me know that there is a process between believing and learning what I’m believing in. So that takes a lot of pressure off of defining anything because I have some time before that awakening.
In the Tenth Step promises in the Big Book, it says, “For by this time sanity will have returned.” It really helps to know that the steps as a big picture are all linked, and without each other, they are useless. By doing the steps between two and ten, we find how to be restored to sanity. It doesn’t happen by just doing step two, but by doing the inventory, the amends, and the humility of the steps.
In just doing the action that these steps suggest, there doesn’t need to be a defined god or religion to get the positive results from these steps.