Step 2
We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
When I saw step 2, I knew I was home. This is what I'd been most concerned about. Because I knew I was insane, even before I recognized that I was an alcoholic! I had been sent to the State Mental Hospital on two occasions, after serious suicide attempts. This step gave me hope! It told me that I wasn't alone, that others had known the insanity that I had, and here they had a step to take care of it! All I had to do was "come to believe".
I found that fairly easy. I believed what I saw. The AA's in these rooms were not insane nut jobs, as I knew myself to me. Perhaps there was hope for me. I had already been assured that God was in my life again. I had said a prayer of surrender, and He had sent someone to help me, to introduce me to Alcoholics Anonymous.so, I kept it simple, in believing, I realized I was taking something on faith, for the first time in a long time.
Some AA's pointed out to me, that the step merely says "could" restore me, not would. I didn't let that stop me! I believed that God could and would restore me to sanity. After all the years of psychotherapy, the shock treatments I'd received, the diagnosis of things like manic-depressive, and skitzophrenic, and paranoid, well, that never had helped....nothing had helped. I had surely tried everything. I'd been neurotic for a long time. The definition of a neurotic, that I liked best was "a neurotic is someone who is constantly running into reality"!
That was me! I would go along in my life, not paying much attention, and then wham! something would happen that would cause me to go "off" again......it was always a surprise! Why, I asked, was this happening to me?
Once I came into AA, I stopped asking that question. I learned to listen to others. This sobriety path was something I knew nothing about, but all the wonderful, healthy people around me, at every meeting, looked like they had been restored to a sound mind. Why not me? I qualified, that I knew. And I was so willing to learn another way of living.
And so, day by day, I got better physically and mentally. I was now ready to go on to Step 3.
