What does “came to believe” mean to me?

[Chino]

For me it was more like "remembered to believe...".

During the entire first year of my daughter's addiction, I completely forgot about a Higher Power. I was so determined to save/control her that I was making myself her HP, and I'm pretty lousy at it.

I was so focused on her, thinking if she'd get clean I would be happy. I hinged everything on her, put her and her addiction before everything else. In that sense, I had made her and her addiction my HP. All that did was cause a fall from grace for me, and it literally sent me to my knees.

I always remembered HP during good times, but was slow to remember during the bad. I thought I had gratitude but without humility it meant nothing. I knew how to say thank you but I kept forgetting to ask for help for myself, despite having done that before in my life.

My grandmother was a medicine woman, and she assigned an individual word for everyone to ponder. Her word for me was humility and she gave it to me when I was 16. She told me if I needed help I had to ask for it. It was soon after that when I first reached out to the Creator.

I found serenity that day and many times since then. It's only now that I'm able to see I took serenity for granted. I didn't understand it's something I have to seek every day, and the only way to attain it is with and through a Higher Power.

I've come to believe that my Creator gives me many sources to that Higher Power, and the 12 steps, the people who work them, are one of them.

[keepinon]

Wow..humility at 16..that was something i didn't get until life kicked me in the a** a bunch of times. Slow learner over here. I have quoted this before , but there is a buddihst saying. "Be humilated enough, find humility" Thats how I had to get it. Am impatient for my AD to find some...must run in the family!

[Freedom1990]

Excellent subject, Chino!

It was a gradual process for me because prior to recovery, I spent years trying to run away from the God of the Catholic church and my parents' understanding.

I could not embrace that concept anymore.

I began to see something I wanted in the people sitting in the rooms of recovery, and I came to believe in something, if only the people who seemed to be doing well with life!

Somewhere along the way, I began to find my own HP, a God of my understanding, if you will.

[CatsPajamas]

A wise recovery friend often told me that she took it in really tiny baby steps. She said it like this:

First I came
Then I came to
and then I came to believe.

I understand it now. In the beginning, all I could do was show up. I walked into meetings, sat down, and cried for an hour. I was barely able to squeak out my name during introductions.

After awhile, after just suiting up and showing up to meetings, the fog began to lift. I found a sponsor and I worked step one. I remember when I "came to" and I started to realize just how powerless I was. I came, and then I came to.

And finally, I came to believe. I came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.

Other threads to come: what is sanity, and the fact that I had to believe that the greater power in my life was NOT, in fact, my A. I had made him my god, and it was a process to remove him from power.

[keepinon]

I too (like Freedom) came to belive after I saw people in the program who had peace and sanity and even happiness. People who wer ein the same position I was, but could breathe, talk about something other than their A, sleep at night, etc. It made me belive that I could have it too.