Teggie
If you go to live meetings, just take a look around the room and you will see people who have been through as bad or worse than you, and you will see that they have peace, serenity and hope. Try to believe in whatever power got them that far. You don't have to call it God. You can call it inner strength, the power that runs the universe, our simply Higher Power with no specific religous connotation. Just a "power" that is greater than we are.
Some people call the strength of the fellowship their Higher Power, until they can move from there.
My Higher Power is God (doesn't mean yours has to be), and the God I know today is a loving, forgiving God who watches over and protects each of us, not the God I grew up with who was presented as a powerful judge waiting to punish sinners.
And what I said to Lorelai was that I sturggled with this too, and really wasn't convinced that God would restore me to sanity, but seeing what He had done for others gave me that faint glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe he might do it for me.
Came to believe means just that. It's a process for arriving at that belief and it takes time, an open heart and mind, and observation of others who have what we want.
Hugs
Ann