AA Second Step Excerpt from Book

This is an excerpt from a workbook I am co-writing that will  be published later this year:

Step 2 – “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Alcoholics Anonymous is a group of fellow alcoholics who have been where you are. While they cannot keep you sober, they will help you progress in your recovery by sharing their experience, strength, and hope. They will help you fill the void carved into your mind and heart by the disease of alcoholism. You will have a program to practice with the guidance of a sponsor and the strength of your Higher Power, who will restore you to mental, emotional and spiritual health “one day at a time.”

Step Two is the process by which you become free. It gives you something else to do mental turmoil of your problems besides wallowing in pity and playing the victim. You have someone else who is all powerful and knows what is best for you in your unmanageable situation and you learn to look beyond yourself for answers.

First, you will recognize that other 12 Steppers have faith in a Higher Power and somehow that makes a huge difference in their lives. You will perceive the peace, love and happiness that others members have during the meetings you attend. You will feel a yearning in your soul to possess those qualities yourself. Gradually your mind will be opened to the possibility that you, too, can depend on a Higher Power to experience that serenity.

Coming to believe may be a process for you. Don’t worry about the strength of your belief, just become willing to recognize that there is something out there that can shoulder all your questions and problems, and restore you to sanity.

Eventually you become WILLING to believe, but even that comes in stages. Ask your Higher Power for the willingness to be willing, and then you will finally believe.

The Serenity Prayer helps you realize that although you can’t change your past, you can make peace with it thereby increasing the degree of serenity you feel in your life. You do this through claiming your past: by writing it down, sharing it, and then trusting in the arrival of peaceful acceptance. All of the steps you do should be done in writing and dated because you may go through the steps more than once and it’s helpful to remember where you were and how far you have come. 

Please don’t underestimate the power of writing things down. Speaking out at meetings is good but doesn't give you the sudden inspiration that writing can offer.

Go to at least one meeting daily, confer with your sponsor, and do the next right thing. Making right choices will increase your self esteem. It’s so freeing to now realize that you are free of the active addiction to alcohol/drugs. Today you have a choice. In the throes of addiction, you didn't have a choice. You may have felt unworthy and hopeless. Beginning to trust in a Higher Power you will rediscover hope. Make a deliberate action now and choose sanity, faith, and healing for your life. Be proud and grateful for the right choices you make today.

Read step two again, focusing on the word “Power.” The day you start placing your attention on the transforming ability of your higher power instead of pressing on as the pilot of your destiny, you begin to experience miracles in your life. One of those miracles is your ability to talk about your feelings and fears in AA meetings.

You have surrendered your unmanageability, asked for help, and made a deliberate decision to rely on your Higher Power to restore you to sanity. The immediate answer to all your questions in recovery comes from learning and practicing The Serenity Prayer. There are a couple different versions of The Serenity Prayer and both are included below:

First Version:

God grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Second Version:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Reciting The Serenity Prayer many times all day long and taking some deep breaths is how we practice step two in our everyday lives.

In recovery, you will slowly begin to create a balanced manageability for yourself. You will be able to discern what needs your attention at any one time. The Big Book helps you to discern the difference between “letting go” of the things for which you have no control over and changing the things you can. (Big Book p. 62-63)

Some may not be able or willing at this time to rely on FAITH, (firm belief in something which there is no proof). Sometimes you will find Blind Faith OPPRESSING because of childhood or through a life experience, the concept of a caring God doesn't make sense to you. You may really have a hard time with believing in a “Supreme Being,” but it will come.

If you are uncomfortable thinking about Your Higher Power, you can lean on The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous as Your Higher Power. The more you study and think about it, the more positive you will become in Alcoholics Anonymous. We are used to using our own human reasoning to get through life.

Many of us believe that the big book was completed with some divine intervention. It was inspired by a higher power through the creators of Alcoholics Anonymous.

This ‘Promise’ started the last paragraph of p. 83 of the Big Book tells us that, without a doubt, freedom from the many types of slavery imposed on alcoholics/addicts is not merely a possibility, but an inevitable outcome. We will witness this guarantee in doing our work in AA: meetings, reading, doing step-work, and practicing a new way of life. Every action we take in our recovery resonates in the promise of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bad News

There aren't going to be any new postings for at least a few weeks. I broke my right hand and I'm right-handed and this one character at a time thing with left hand is very irksome to me, a person who types 73 wpm. I promise, I will post as soon as it doesn't make me feel like using my laptop as a Frisbee.