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paulmh · 07-01-2009, 08:56 AM

A lot of people - maybe a majority even - are agnostic when they come into AA, Somehow we've got to overcome that first big hurdle, "came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity".

My experience is that I was convinced that I was going to die drinking, that I couldn't stop no matter what I did, and that I had reached a point of hopelessness. I met other people in AA who had got sober, and their stories were sometimes even worse than mine. So I became open to the idea that there might be a solution, but I didn't know what it was. This was a big deal for me. Previous to this, only solutions I agreed with or understood were what I was looking for. So I came to believe that I could get sober - and sane - again. But more importantly I became open to doing things in ways other than my own. The change that was wrought in step 2 was not in the nature of G*d, or my conception of him or beliefs about him - it was an opening and a shifting of myself to accepting that I did not have all the answers, and that there was a "way of sanity" which other had tapped into, and I could too.

07-01-2009, 08:56 AM	#1 (permalink)
paulmh Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: UK Posts: 1,373	Care to share? Step 2 for "we agnostics" A lot of people - maybe a majority even - are agnostic when they come into AA, Somehow we've got to overcome that first big hurdle, "came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity". My experience is that I was convinced that I was going to die drinking, that I couldn't stop no matter what I did, and that I had reached a point of hopelessness. I met other people in AA who had got sober, and their stories were sometimes even worse than mine. So I became open to the idea that there might be a solution, but I didn't know what it was. This was a big deal for me. Previous to this, only solutions I agreed with or understood were what I was looking for. So I came to believe that I could get sober - and sane - again. But more importantly I became open to doing things in ways other than my own. The change that was wrought in step 2 was not in the nature of Gd, or my conception of him or beliefs about him - it was an opening and a shifting of myself to accepting that I did not have all the answers, and that there was a "way of sanity" which other had tapped into, and I could too. __________________ It all works. It IS simple Miss C* Give up hope of a better past.