Three legged stool Step Two

[nandm]

"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"

Step Two represents the second leg of our recovery stool which is still incomplete but will stand if propped against something more powerful and stable than itself.

Newcomers in A.A., like the stool, need something more dependable to lean upon than the false promises of alcohol. Like the diabetic, we must use insulin or die, we look to some "Power greater than ourselves" for correction of our absurd drinking behavior. Remember how often it bordered upon outright acts of drunken insanity?

Having reached this crisis in our lives, we will benefit from a frank admission of our need for help from "a Higher Power." Either that, or keep on drinking. Shall we let vanity and reservation spoil this last chance to live sanely and soberly? Why continue to head the world's long list of prize suckers? You know--the ones who will not learn from past experience.

Alcoholics consistently excel in making mistakes but refuse to profit from them. Like the stupid workman in the story, they always come out on the short end of life's bounties.

This fellow got a new job in a saw mill. The foreman took him to a buzz saw and explained its operation. Then, after warning him it was dangerous, he sauntered off. Now alone, the workman, fascinated by the whirling contraption, reached an experimental finger toward it. A second later the finger was cut off. The poor workman let out a cry of pain, and the foreman came rushing up. "What happened?" he cried "Your darned saw cut off my finger," gasped the workman. "What in thunder did you do wrong?" asked the foreman. "Danged if I know," said the workman. "I just touched it like this---ouch, there goes another finger."

It is easy to laugh at the lumberjack and keep right on feeding our own fingers into that alcoholic buzz saw. Some of us get our heads into the saw as well, allowing insanity to end all hopes for future freedom or happiness.

This is strong language but we cannot emphasize the serious nature of alcoholic thinking or its objective---to drink at any cost.

To drink at any cost, with no regard for consequences, reducses to its simplest equation the insanity of alcholism at work.

Our intelligence must mark time, or leave entirely, while we alcoholics overcome every obstacle between us and the next drink.

This obsession sets us apart from normal drinkers who can stop at will. Drinking, we lack the natural instinct of self-preservation which violates the first principle of sanity: namely, the will to survive. Surely there is mental illness in alcoholism.

Consider the ghastly mornings after the nights before. Remember those jittery, agonizing hangovers and how they belied the sanity of our drinking? How they kept us in sickening weakness, remorse, and fear, until life was void and as unstable as a two-legged stool.

In desperation, we took more alcohol to bloster our enfeebled energy, as our dear ones stood by, vainly trying to help. By the time we had consumed enough alcohol to quiet our jitters, we were drunk again---and obviously insane by anybody's standard.

Sick and disraught, we phoned for more liquor or traveled to a bar room, and in tragic compulsion continued to drink on energy and money we did not possess. Stupefied, we drank without recall into a new day--another hangover.

Among the symptoms of our mental illness are such things as that first drink which starts a new binge, unpredictable behavior, deep resentments, drinking for spite, lack of self-criticism and emotional instability.

Add to this list our other mental quirks and we find additional symptoms of our mental illness. For example: fear---fits of anger---stinking thinking---criticism---dihonesty---delusions---blackouts---D.T.'s---suicide---refusal to admit that we are ill and that we need help.

We need help all right but not the kind we, or any other human being, can render. The second leg of our recover stool is suggested by Step Two. It is help from "A Power greater than ourselves---to restore us to sanity." Suggestions for this help are taken from a basic law of recovery. It does not fail those who sincerely use it. Having failed with our own power, perhaps we can regain our sanity from faith in a Higher Power. Others have done it.

Being convinced of this, it seems advisable to consider Step Three---the third leg of our recovery stool.

See Three legged stool Step Three.