Ananda

OK...so ...

I've got step one..I am an alchoholic, and my life is unmanagable. The bedevilments, the dr.s opinion...

Lets not rehash that...

So here i sit..screwed if I don't find a power greater than myself to restore me to sanity.

I have some stuff i do daily in regards to this...I have opened my mind and heart to this step...but boy do i waffle...

So share with me...about your personal 2nd step, and about the general way that the step tells us to move forward.

In step 2 I am still in grave danger of drinking. So i'm thinking I should ask for your expereinces.

mine is basically that i cant seem to stay on trusting god...i keep going back to thinking he might not be there for me...

Don't smack me too hard guys..but tell the truth

Charmie

hey nanny...step 2...
do i believe i am insane?? yes,i keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result.
do i believe a sick brain can overcome a sick brain.no.
do i believe absolutely that I AM the be-all and end-all in ALL things....no.
am i powerless...yes.
i have no choice...just like i didnt over drink.

RobertHugh

thanks for starting this, Ananda, if for no other reason than to get me off the other thread.

Here's my experience looking back at Step 2.

My potential to experience a power greater than myself is corrupted by the preconceived notions I bring with me. For me, it was a punishing, judgmental God. Even when I modified that as I got older into a more loving diety, it still had basic human characteristics-- I don't think my mind is able to imagine something it hasn't experienced. Most importantly, I had expectations as to how that power would be felt in my life-- and they were never met.

My sponsor, John, adheres to a Big Book approach called the Hyannis Big Book Step Study (I'll trust that I can include that link, or one of the moderators can take it down). He believes that you are never working steps 1 through 3-- you work 4-9 and you then experience 1-3. He points to the manner in which the first 100 wrote the book-- looking back at their experience-- and this idea becomes more clear.

So for John, it's a quick run to Step 4. He had me read from the preface to 63, and would not meet with me until I did so. We then sat and went through it page by page, and he qualified me as a hopeless alcoholic. When we discussed Step 2, John really didn't care if I believed or not. He asked the question, and I discussed willigness to believe. I've heard it said that some sponsors blow through this regardless of the answer-- even if it's "I can't believe," they ask, "Can you continue with this work?" And move on.

So here's what happened. I did steps 4-8 (am currently in 9, making amends). During the process of doing those steps, I became less and less obsessed with drinking, until it was not a thought. I had this odd feeling that I'd woke up, because I was pretty clear on why I could not drink-- it now seemed like a bad idea all the time. And thirdly, I felt compelled to talk about it-- to share what had happened with other people.

This is the manifestation of a higher power in my life. It certainly falls short of the grandiose expectations I had-- an intervening, dramatic presence in my life-- but quietly gives me what I need. And I believe it's sustainable as long as I hold up my end and try to carry the message.

Not sure if this makes sense, but it's as if God is the relief and restoration I feel. I don't know if they are one in the same or separate, nor is it my job to figure it out. But it's as profound a shift in my comfort and sense of ease as I've ever had in my life.

I don't believe I would have had it if I did not do 4-9. Also, every night I sat down to write my fourth step, I had to read pages 84-88 (steps 10-11). My sponsor adhered to a philosophy that we do the "black part of the page," so when it said on page 84 "we vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past," he believes it means we begin to practice 10-11 while we're writing Four.

Bottom line, Step 2 was not going to be a simple conclusion of the mind for me. I couldn't get there. I could muster willingess-- to believe, and then to do the work that ultimately got me there.

GettingStronger2

Thank goodness.

For me step 2 was not a hard process, so I am not sure if I can help. i have always had a belief in a higher power, but had an experience about 11 years ago that proved to me I am not alone on the journey of life. By all accounts, I should have died, but I survived. However, somewhere between there and here, I took that forgranted.

I have heard a lot of people say that they started with simply looking to the program or others who have long term sobriety as being a power greater than themselves, and that was all they needed in the beginning.

I think what is important is to know you are not god and you are not a "higher power" and move forward. Dwelling too long on it can keep you from moving forward and making the progress you need.

Remember, spiritual progress, not perfection.

Mark75

My higher power is within all of us... Me, you, everyone ... God shines brightest when we come together, for whatever reason, as long as the purpose of coming together is to not harm each other.

Ananda... I sense God within you, in fact he burns brightly... Look inside yourself, you'll find Him there. What are you afraid of? You are looking in all the right places, and He's there, but first you have to find Him inside you, then you might be blinded, because then you'll see Him everywhere!



Mark

WakeUp

There is something more powerful than me, doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that one out. In the grand scheme of everything there is in the universe, I'm as tiny as a speck of flea dung. As to whether there is a God, as in All Power, Creator of the Universe, I don't really care, personally. How's that for rigorous honesty?

Boleo

I did not need start believing in a Higher Power, I already had lots of them

A God of justice
A God of reason
A God of pride
A God of wealth

What I needed was a whole new staff (LOL!). I replaced them with;

A God of mercy
Satori
Moksha
Nirodha

AW2486

Great thread ananda, Good to see you reaching out.

Being agnostic. I already believed there is a God. I just didn't have any knowledge of God. It was just word on the wall and something the pastor spoke about in church. When I saw "God as we understand him" in the 3rd step, I thought I could start with that. Looking back the most important thing about it was being open to the possibility that a higher power could help me. My concept of God has changed a lot over the years. It just keeps getting better.

Andy

Ananda

perhaps the real question for me implicit in step 2 is can and will god help me?

if it's about me being enough of something..willing, openminded, honest or anything else...I am lost..cause i am who i am....

can and will god help me is the question that step 2 asks me.

and where i keep falling short.

RobbyRobot

When I could not (or will not) stay on trusting God two things happen to me at the same moment: I blame God for my situation and I feel guilty and blame myself. From that comes anger and bad memories of similar experiences. Lots of them. As time goes on throughout the day I have created some real resentments against myself for not trusting God.

It seems that I had no choice though. I was just being honest with myself. Just following the honesty wherever it took me: and it took me to not trusting in God and so not trusting in my sense of judgement either. I also felt foolish for falling for it again: that God actually cared about me. How dumb am I anyways?

The way out of that thinking and feeling nightmare is very simple. It comes down to what Higher Power do I actually understand is there for me to have my alcoholism arrested? Many times in my journey I got my HP confused with being in my life for other reasons than my sobriety. It was a real aha moment when I accepted that first I needed a life to live that was changed for real before I could understand my want to trust God and stay on it for good and all. A difficult lesson for me: first things first: get a sober thinking mind and from there build a living trust with God.

That worked for me. As my alcoholic mind gave way to my sober thinking mind, my life changed, and my trust issues with God became acceptable and I worked out with God solutions that kept me on the right side of sober living no matter the difficulty. I've been through alot these many sober years and my new life has never failed me. never. So for me just dumpimg the alcoholic mind solved the trust issues with my HP.

Please feel that what you are going thru Nan is nothing more than the experience of thinking with an alcoholic mind, imo. You can change that mind out. I did.

Robby

Ananda

thank you

AW2486

Keep searching. You can use my HP if you want.

gravity

My sponsor and I are going through the steps one by one (for both our benefit). I was reading Bill's Story and this jumped out at me:

"He talked for hours. Childhood memories rose before me. I could almost hear the sound of the preacher's voice as I sat, on still Sundays, way over there on the hillside; there was that proffered temperance pledge I never signed; my grandfather's good natured contempt of some church fold and their doings; his insistence that the spheres really had their music; but his denial of the preacher's right to tell him how he must listen; his fearlessness as he spoke of these things just before he died; these recollections welled up from the past. They made me swallow hard.

That war-time day in old Winchester Cathedral came back again.
I had always believed in a Power greater that myself. I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionist, suggested vast laws and forces at work. Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a might purpose and rhythm underlay all. How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitation. But that was as far as I had gone."

Personally, I feel like I'm on a path and everything before this moment was neccesary to get me where I am right now which is a good place. Just the way things are I suppose.

BB quote from the 1st edition of the BB.

DayTrader

I've been inventorying and that's something that I've noticed has been coming up in my writing a lot. Sometimes, I believe God CAN but don't necessarily believe He WILL.

My first place to look is step 1 - Do I reeeeeeally believe my life is unmanageable? Do I really believe I can't manage my own life? Do I really believe I'M NOT the higher power?

Fortunately, my "problems" are usually in my answer to one of those questions. Typically, my "problems" in life, in the steps, what have you... tend to go back to me believing I can run "this" or "that" part of my life....on my own.....with no interference or help from God. It doesn't "feel good" to realize I think in those terms - I don't "like" that I think that way.... but.... that's me. lol.

The "will He" part, to me, boils down to faith. I need more faith.....or "better" faith. The only way I've figured out how to get that is to pray for more faith and to "act as if" I have the faith I don't yet have. And that "acting as if" can be scary, real scary sometimes. Given my history, I don't typically like doing things that scare me.....but I'm learning the more I do, the more my faith grows, so the more I tend to believe He WILL take care of me.

Once again......I have to be "into action" to get the tools I need to feel comfortable about being "into action" in the first place. Basically, it boils down to just doing stuff I don't want to do or necessarily feel comfortable about doing to get some practical experience in growing my faith.

Ananda

thanks Day....yep i was alot more centered on step 2 when i was acting out of a belief i didn't really have...very different to me then fake it till you make it...

for now i'll just go through my day the best I can....

Thanks all.

keithj

I think maybe this is the whole point of Step 2. Step 2 is being open to the possibility that me, as I know myself, is not the full depth and potential of my being. There is more.

Fortunately, I don't have to do that in a day. Looking back at Step 2 the first time through, I had very little faith or belief. I clung to that phrase, 'or even willing to believe' as being enough. The book told me that it had been repeatedly proven that I could build a solid spiritual structure on that foundation, if I would take the rest of the Steps.

Here is my life without God. I'm right in the middle of it, and it's intolerable. Step 1 propels me in to Step 2.

If I stop and say, 'well, this is the way I am', I'm selling the process short. Step 2 does not ask us to know what's going to happen, or how it will turn out. It asks us to give up on knowing any of that.

Open minded to the possibilities. I will go wherever this takes me, because I can't stay where I am.

I had a very meager start with Step 2. I didn't dwell on it. I did not believe, but I was willing to. I went through pages 60-63 with a sponsor, got on my knees and said the 3rd Step prayer, and felt nothing but silly.

And then I went home and started a 4th Step. That's the willingness.

And the truth of that 'came to believe' was very true for me. My understanding of a higher power, and my relationship to a higher power has evolved so much since then. I was clutching at straws early on.

There is no requirement to believe in anything. The requirement is willingness to believe. And I only do that when Step 1 has forced me to.

Mark75

Well said... that has been exactly my experience with step 2. Thanx keith!

And since I believe in a loving God, I figure wherever He takes me will be OK.

Mark

shaun00

..

Very much my experience thankyou keith.

Maybe not so much finding a power greater than me.......more about unraveling a twisted perception or willing to believe that god could help.....rather than punish.
part of me was convinced i would be passing the pearly gates..in flames...on my way to warmer climates..lol..

could i believe that the perception i had was not the truth....that maybe it was someone elses truth...
the most beautiful words in the book to me...."god could and would"...

Unravelling all that stuff took time....lucky for me the step doesnt say faith.
it says "come to believe".......all i needed was an openmind not a closed one.

step 2 to me is just the start of a never ending beautiful book.......i bought it because it was recommended so i believed id enjoy it......i know nothing when i start it........as more is revealed i start to understand the fuss......my understanding matures overtime.......more is revealed and im hooked.

so there you go........i had a pre-conceived idea of god....that idea was not useful to me....it was keeping me pinned in a corner with deep rooted fear.
works for my mother mind you.........just not an old drunk like me.

can you believe what has worked for millions of drunks could work for you ananda?..........or even the willingness to believe?

gravity

What I recently heard from an oldtimer that has been very helpful is "You have to change your way of thinking because what you believe right now is wrong."

Some examples of where my beliefs were wrong:

- I could learn to drink like a normal person
- I can't live my life without alcohol
- I'm not selfish
- I'm not like other alcoholics
- Quitting drinking will solve all my problems
- Life isn't fair
- I'm inferior
- People wouldn't like me if they really got to know me

Could it be that there are other beliefs I have right now that are wrong?

At the beginning of my AA journey, I didn't really believe that a Higher Power could help me stay sober but here I am 32 months later.