step 2

[stickmonkey]

Sponsor / Sponsee Second Step Worksheet
"We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

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Read Step Two out of the Basic Text every day before writing.
Read Step Two out of It Works, How & Why.
Write down your definition of each word in the step. Then look up each word individually in the dictionary & write what you learn about the difference between what you thought it meant & what the dictionary says it means.
Write what each part means to you:
We came
to believe
that a power
greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
Write about your concept of insanity & your concept of sanity. Then look up both words & write about what you have learned.
Write out how you were insane when using.
Write out how you are insane in recovery.
Write about your concept of faith. Then look it up & write about what you've learned.
List three powers greater than yourself in your active using & three in your recovery.
Name ten positive things that a power greater than yourself has done for you. Five while using & five in recovery.
Everyday write about events that relate to "Making the same mistakes & expecting different results". Also write about events where a "Power Greater than Yourself" participated in your life.

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[stickmonkey]

Power Greater than Ourselves

Knoxville NAFG Draft
October 2005


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God is in Narcotics Anonymous. Can we talk about it? Can we write about it? For many people talking about God can be a sensitive issue. NA works for people who don’t believe in a supernatural being or are not sure about God. NA also works for people who are deeply religious in the conventional sense. Finally, God seems to work well for all those people whose belief system lies somewhere in between. We see God in the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions of NA. In Step One we find ourselves powerless, we surrender. We admit that we cannot do anything about our problem on our own and we are asking for help. The addicts in that first meeting represent a Power greater than we are. We may get our first exposure to a God that expresses Himself through those addicts. Hope grows in Step Two as we go through the process of coming to believe that this Power greater than ourselves can heal us. In the Third Step, we decide to give our daily lives and our wills over to the care of this God of our understanding.

The faith developed in Step Three gives us the courage we need for Step Four. As we begin the Fifth Step, we invite God to be a part of the process. Step Six finds us prepared to have God remove various aspects of our self-centeredness. Through God's grace, we find willingness and ask God to relieve our shortcomings. God gives us the willingness to take responsibility for our past destruction. In Step Nine, we step out on the faith that God will not put us into a situation that we cannot handle. We pray for help. We move forward, forgive ourselves and offer forgiveness to any others that may have harmed us. Then we ask people we have harmed for the forgiveness that we need. The integrity inherent in Step Ten results from the power of God working in us through the previous Steps. We strive to ever expand our understanding and ongoing connection with God. We pray for knowledge of God's will for us as well as the power that we need to carry it out. Having a spiritual awakening we continue to do God's will in our lives, giving love and service to everyone. We talk and write about God so that we might increase our understanding of the most far-reaching influence on our recovery and indeed our lives.

Some members have expressed concerns about the steps using ‘He’ and ‘Him’ in referring to God. The Tenth Tradition states "Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the NA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." In this spirit, NA as a fellowship does not have a definition of God; this is up to each of us. We do however follow the conventions of the English language, with some allowance to be sensitive and not alienate someone whose belief is uncertain or non-existent. A personal understanding of God can develop or expand by having open discussions with other NA members. Open-mindedness is an essential key to our recovery. While the world debates over the true definition of God, Narcotics Anonymous does not participate in any public controversy. If we try to identify God with one 'true' definition, our minds close to other possibilities. It is more important to find a higher power that works for you than a Higher Power that other people approve of. Loving, caring, greater than our addiction, and ourselves our Higher Power will do for us what we can't do for ourselves. Despite our individual understanding, members today feel that the God of our understanding as written in the steps should not be a controversial issue rather a mutual identification.

We don't try to convince or convert addicts seeking recovery in NA. We have found that any attempt to force feed religion or spiritual belief just pushes away even very sincere newcomers. We work instead on trying to help a person see where their using has caused their pain. Once this really sinks in, along with the powerlessness experienced and admitted in Step One, the notion of getting some power into their live takes on a very different meaning. It is getting something we need, not buying into a belief system that is a lie or done just to please another person.

People bring their childhood learning into their present with all its strengths and limitations. What we learned as children may have been confused or become confused with time. What ever we think our belief is, we want to check it out thoroughly. Our future life and happiness depend on it. Our belief has to work for us to recover. Our newly found open-mindedness teaches us that we can learn many things from many people. The important thing to know is that each member has the responsibility to find their own understanding of God. Many of us as newcomers found that with the help of our sponsor, we were able to find an image of God, with which we would be comfortable. Anything we can learn from books, people or prayer increases our existence and peace of mind. The more we learn the better. Almost all our pain came from not knowing enough or from believing things that weren't true. We can't afford to base our lives on lies and fantasy.

Many addicts dream about living a spiritual life but are doubtful that they can really achieve it, even with God's help. We discovered that when we set goals that seemed beyond our grasp and asked for God's help, we were lifted up and given the energy and direction to achieve our goals. The doorway to miracles opened. We built on each success, realizing that our experience is just a valid and meaningful as that of any other member. We wish that all addicts could find recovery, even one that expressed a reluctance to embrace a Higher Power. This is because many of us had little or no understanding of God when we first came to the Fellowship of NA. Others feared a Higher Power. Years spent not relating to or believing in a Power greater than ourselves made it difficult to achieve conscious contact with God. Suffering from extreme spiritual indifference, we simply did not see God as a necessity for our recovery. Many of us regarded recovery only as a practical method to retrieve some of the things that we had lost. Being open-minded is important to making progress in our spiritual growth. For some of us struggling with the idea of God, it helped when we thought of a Higher Power as being like a deep underground spring, hidden from view but present nonetheless. The thirst for spiritual fulfillment may be quenched at many wells, all drawn from a common source. It is not necessary for all of us to drink from the same well -- we just don't want our members dying from thirst. If there is any doubt that God exists, we need only to look outside and see the miracles of life. By listening to NA members and observing them staying clean, we see further evidence that something special is working miracles in our lives. Anyone who has attended even a few meetings has met someone who expressed a reluctance to embrace a higher power because of that fire and brimstone God from their childhood. An important aspect of believing in a God who is forgiving in nature is that it enables us to accept who we were, who we are and who we can become.

We may have once demanded that God administer justice to those that harmed us. Nevertheless, when we completed an inventory, detailing the exact nature of our wrongs, most of us realized that we would be far better off with a Higher Power who was both just and forgiving. Open-mindedness is important here. The higher power is like a deep underground mine hidden from view but present and felt nonetheless. No single key unlocks every door. Some of us came into Narcotics Anonymous wearing a religion like a mask, trying to avoid personal responsibility for our past and for our recovery. In time we learned that God would only do for us what God could do through us. It is during this realization that many change their understanding of God from a religious perception to a more spiritual relationship. It is only important to us that you find the key that works for you. Only if you are successful in doing this will you find the power to recover.

Selfless service is an expression of our gratitude for the care of God. NA is a spiritual not religious program. NA doesn't endorse any particular system of faith or worship of a specific Supreme Being or God. Nor, does NA endorse specific rituals of worship. We understand spirituality as the vital principal alive in each of us. It's an inspiring and encouraging influence in our program and in our lives.

As we recover, we become aware that our lives are reflections of our relationship with God. Instead of trying to know all the answers about God, most of us have found it useful to concentrate our energy into seeking the knowledge of what God's will is for us, and trying to live our lives accordingly. We realize that we need beliefs in order to follow a spiritual path, but we also need to be open-minded enough to receive God's wisdom. We cannot afford to forget that we receive our freedom and well being from our Higher Power. Spirituality is not based on social acceptance, material wealth or physical appearance but rather on a personal and intimate relationship with the God of our understanding. Our lives are reflections of our relationship with God.

Sometimes we feel that our pain is so great that even our Higher Power cannot relieve it. If we believe in a God that cannot handle every aspect of our lives, we may find ourselves frozen in fear, waiting to react to the next crisis. We can't afford to base our lives on bad information and fantasy. Many of us tried to fix ourselves, only to learn that we needed outside help. It is important for us to realize that we are not recovering alone. We came to accept help from the spiritual principles as part of our recovery process. An understanding of a Higher Power begins to give us an understanding of our own worth. Our faith grows stronger as we uncover the many ways God helps us when there is no one else we can turn to. Other members shared with us that God could be found anywhere, at any time. This Higher Power can be detected in home group members, in a Spiritual Being or anywhere in between. Many of us discover the ways God helped us when there was no one else there to take our side in things. It is often heard in NA meetings that a common prayer for newcomers is, "God, just help me to stay clean for today." Prayer after prayer, day after day, our proof that a Higher Power exists comes as we make it through those days clean. In time, we learn to use prayer and meditations not only to find comfort, but to actually guide us through our lives.

The feeling of being able to access help from a timeless, loving source lifts us and gives us the energy we need to live. Any belief in a loving God seems to work for us. While individual beliefs may vary in particulars, certain generalities hold true. Living the program is our attempt to become more God-centered and less self-centered. We have learned that God truly loves us and will never abandon us. Our feelings and perspective about these things changes with time. Don't be in too big a hurry. What a 'freeing feeling' it is to know that we no longer have to be in charge.

As we grow and mature in our recovery, we realize what those members meant when they talked about being "God-centered." It is an internal feeling that no matter what is going on around us, everything is going to be all right. It may begin during our prayer and meditation, but we can carry this spiritual connection with us throughout our day. If self-centeredness is truly the core of our disease, then God-centeredness is the core of our recovery. Writing our moral inventory, we rely on God's guidance for the courage to be fearless and the wisdom to know right from wrong. Sharing the exact nature of our wrongs, we trust God to see us through the rough spots and we trust God to work through the other human being so that their role too, is a spiritual one. We practice the faith acquired in the previous Steps to help us become willing to have God remove our defects of character. We realize that we have been cared for all along and that our lives will be even more enriched when we let go of the defects that are holding us back.

The Seventh Step places God's role in direct conflict with our egos. As we humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings, we are again saying, "We can't do this alone." Our disease may reel in rebellion, but we need only hold steady to our course. As we make a list of persons we had harmed, we try to look at each of them in the light of God's love. If we were expressing only unconditional love, how would we have treated each of them differently? Forgiveness is a spiritual principle. Whether we are asking to be forgiven or extending forgiveness, we can experience God's presence. We continue to allow God to be our guide by evaluating our actions and correcting our mistakes as they occur.

God plays an integral part in each of these steps, but so do we. Without our willingness, there will be very little spiritual progress. Being open to gaining or improving our belief is one thing anyone can do, even experimentally. The basic idea that help is available from an unseen source can help us get this spiritual connection. By whatever means, the luck and increased capacity to go forward in life without fear shows that some basic human need has been met. Ego-based thinking and living are one of the biggest enemies of the addict in recovery. Our egos tell us that no matter how much we have or hope for, it's not enough. All our character defects are manifestations of our egos. We need to set our egos aside and allow God to become the healing force responsible for our recovery.

One addict shares: "Ego creates the illusion that God is not with me. Sometimes I feel separated from God, and I feel alone. I realize that this separation is not possible. If God has pure love and cares for me, then it is impossible for God to be away from me - He just won't do it! This feeling of being disconnected is another lie my disease tries to use on me in ‘its primary purpose - my destruction.’"

We have often seen God working through other people. Many of us have been at meetings when it was easy to recognize God's presence in the rooms. The atmosphere of recovery was in the air. We shared what we needed to share and heard what we needed to hear. This is an example of God in action. While some may feel the necessity to be ‘true to their faith’ and find it uncomfortable to imagine that there may be several ways a person may gain access to God, many of us find this wonderful. How magnificent and loving of God to be endlessly available to all who seek, whatever path they may take.

Through working our steps, and applying our Traditions, our beliefs evolve. From the simplicity of a ‘power greater than ourselves’ to a Higher Power concept, we eventually come to a better understanding of ‘God as we understand Him.’ By having a "God of our understanding" members are free to conceive that "God" may be a man, woman, spirit, etc. or even a light bulb or doorknob. Some members will be offended with whatever we define as God, but this is one of our greatest freedoms in NA - to develop OUR own understanding of what God is. With this freedom, comes our right for a personal definition to change over as we grow in recovery. Many if not all of us had to be clean and in the meetings for some time to realize that the Steps lead us into the care of the God of our understanding. This very simple way of expressing the feeling we have towards our spiritual sources is very important to us. We do not turn our lives and wills over to the tyranny of God or the dictatorship of God, just to the care.

Narcotics Anonymous Steps and other NA literature stress the importance of developing a reliance on the God of our understanding. Our Second Step assumes that we already believe in something when it says, "We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Any belief in a loving God seems to work. While individual beliefs may differ, certain fundamental principles hold true. The foundation of our belief is that help is available. Being open to change is a belief we all share. By whatever means, the capacity to go forward in life without fear shows that our faith in a Higher Power is real.

[stickmonkey]

STEP TWO

"We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

The inability to recognize the millions of blessings in our lives is characteristic of our addiction. We can stare at one area that does not measure up to ‘our standards,’ but the reverse is also true. We can become so enthralled with counting ‘our lucky stars’ that we may ignore the cliff’s edge that is right beneath our feet. We addicts seem to view life through one of three types of spectacles. Rose-colored shades distort our vision toward the positive that can be harmful unless we remain vigilant. Dark-colored glasses tint our world and cause it to appear dismal. Our disease bombards us with other negative senses that insure our misery. When we wear clear lenses, we can look at reality and see what it is without our diseased perceptions causing us additional discomfort. Clear glasses allow us to see and seek balance. They allow us to see both good and bad and we learn to respond accordingly. ‘Seeing things as they are’ is truly a gift. We learn that we can choose our footing without that paralyzing fear of disaster with which we were so familiar. We find that living either the gaily colored or dull-plodding existence is not how life actually is.

‘Repeating old patterns while expecting different results’ is a hallmark of the disease of addiction. Until we consciously change our old behaviors in the attempt to obtain new results, the insanity of our disease will remain in control. It is by ‘trusting the process’ of recovery enough to simply try something different that we come to trust that overall change is possible. We do something different and we get different results. The power of this process of our recovery experience is that we are finally moving in a forward direction. Learning what ‘real’ life has to offer us allows us to move towards sanity.

Our disease would have us obsess over everything, one-way or the other. The process of ‘coming to believe’ gives us the ability to see for ourselves what is real. Our logical minds can only take us so far on this spiritual journey. Our inward telling, that we call our intelligence, requires adjusting so that it will match our outward experience. When this match-up isn’t in proper working order, we suffer for it. Therefore, it becomes important to do daily maintenance in this area of recovery. Belief is the result of trusted experiences.

Faith is trusting without the benefit of experience. Belief can include the results of experience alone or a combination of faith that is tied to experience. In olden times, people who were subjects of a king used the phrase ‘By your leave’ to indicate their submission to a person of importance. Sometimes we might use a phrase like, ‘If you don’t mind’ or, ‘If it’s okay with you,’ but the fact that we submit to others is still part of life. We each have many people and things that we submit to. Since we regularly submit to those people and things in which we believe, we want to examine and re-examine our belief, now and throughout the process of recovery.

This is one area where ‘choice’ as referred to in recovery becomes clearly visible. We realize early in the recovery process that we can choose not to submit rather than continuing to submit to things that make us feel more negatively about ourselves. We learn to define sanity for ourselves. Utilizing this choice takes some practice. Many of us never thought of our submission as something we could change. Indeed, it never occurred to us to even try to resist. Submission seemed unavoidable.

‘Believing something’ is an act of surrendering to a proposition or attitude expressed as a statement. We expand our viewpoints by finding out more about how others feel and react to life. We compare notes with others about how we live. Isolation kept us apart and prevented us from doing this. Clean, we become students in a school called ‘life’. We don’t have to do it alone. We compare notes (share experiences) and we can use our books to pass our examinations (survive situations) without using. Coming to believe allows us to shift away from certain people or things that we used to habitually submit to, give-in to, or allow to dominate our lives. We continue to ask ourselves, "Is this the best results we can get?" Taking a good look at who we are, where we are, and what we do on a daily basis may help us awaken to reality. Somehow, we begin to forget to consciously worry about yesterday and tomorrow. The parts that you don’t like are usually not sane. We would not choose to do them today. We can find ourselves involved in losing relationships with life whenever we fail to be satisfied with what we receive in return for what we give.

The ‘sanity’ that we seek in recovery must satisfy our real needs on a daily basis. The confusion that we feel is simply a natural part of personality change. When we feel disorientated or emotionally upset for no apparent reason, it is only an indicator that we have succeeded in altering our relationship to life in some way. Other members, sponsors and our Higher Power can help us adjust to these changes even if we haven’t worked all the Steps yet or haven’t progressed very far in recovery. One of the things we discover about recovery is that we have people in our lives today that are able to be here for us as we are for them. An exception to these general truths occurs when we slip into our old ways and try to get over on our program or other members. We must remain vigilant and not barter our ‘being clean’ for better treatment. We don’t have a right to be offended when people don’t treat us with extra consideration in light of our ‘condition’. We may demonstrate this type of consideration for one another at times and that is fine. The key is that we do so by choice expecting no reward because we only want to help, be considerate, or be useful. What we do willingly by choice is different from doing the same thing under the influence of compulsion, social or otherwise. Membership, being ‘a part of’ requires the mutual respect of one member for another.

Some say, "Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there." Most of us define faith as the gift we receive for the price of acceptance. If we have trouble with the Second Step, we may need to take a closer look at what we consider important or valuable. If we feel like we’re ‘doing without’ some of these things or we get poor results in general. We want to change. Finding and using some extra power to improve our results is what the Steps are all about. Belief grows as we come to recognize the things that we most value, as well as those that we despise. Belief helps us obtain what we hope for in the future. Powerlessness and desperation drives us to set values to escape pain and avoid negative issues. We begin to value love, caring and doing God’s will but may continue getting negative results because we remain focused on our old values. Changing our value systems and developing new ones in accordance with the positive changes that God offers, helps us ‘come to believe’.

One way that many use to get in touch with our hidden, inner self is to try to verbalize or write about what we would like to see in the future. It helps us acquire a belief system that will lead to the ends that we would hope for ourselves. It changes our entire perspective just to realize that we have an unlimited potential future, clean. Many find it extremely helpful to keep a journal or a clear set of memories of whatever visions we have had for ourselves in recovery. It helps us to recall what we wanted when we first got clean, and we may be delighted later on to find that many of our dreams have come true. As we grow in recovery, other visions come to us. When we share these visions with one another, we strengthen our spirit and accelerate our growth. Sometimes our visions will help others even when they don’t seem to apply to us.

We expand our perceptions of the world by acquiring the benefit of what others have learned through personal experience. We broaden our freedom to be an effective part of the world around us by adding to what we know by training, study and application. A part of internal change is being able to enjoy the effects of these changes as they reflect themselves in all parts of our daily lives. It helps when we can surrender again, this time to our ‘lack of a belief’ in God or a Higher Power that is strong enough to give us what we need. These ideas may be incomplete, unconsidered or out of date. Most of us are at least mildly surprised to learn that we can change in this way. The wreckage of our past is much more than the obvious scars, severe legal, medical, or social problems. One of the biggest difficulties with our thought processes is that our information is faulty. This reflects a computer-age saying "Garbage in, garbage out." Running scared has prevented many of us from feeling that we were free to carefully review these basics of thinking. We became accustomed to thinking certain ways and expecting outcomes that may have no basis in reality.

This projection, based on our old thought processes, builds up from those experiences we had when we were loaded or simply because we look at life from an addict’s viewpoint. Healthy relationships are a major structure on the pathway of life. These structures allow us to have relationships with people, places, and things that are stable and lasting. As we change, we may feel overwhelmed and disconcerted by the way these relationships change. Remember that our evaluation of uncomfortable may not be an accurate indicator that something is ‘wrong’. We must continue to bounce our stuff off of other recovering addicts to make these evaluations. There is no way for us to get the ‘personality change’ that we need without a shift in these structures. Discomfort usually occurs during the interval between our perception of the change and our adaptation to it. Belief is the word we use to describe the structures that are ‘real’ to us. These structures change as our beliefs change. A reverent and sensitive attitude helps us identify the new viewpoints and insights that our insufficient beliefs obscured.

Sometimes creation is merely discovering what we felt to be true all along but unable to act on in any real sense. Addicts seem to be sensitive to truth no matter how often we abuse and deny it. Spiritual growth lets us see that we are creatures of our own creation and shows us how this affects others and ourselves. Spiritual maintenance is holding us in line with our new beliefs; allowing them to firm up and work themselves into our new way of life.

Those things that didn’t work for us have to be given time to go away but simply sitting idle and waiting for this to happen may not work. It is much easier to go looking for a belief that may have interested us for some time. We can try to find something that we can feel good about and try to learn more about it. Many of us will find that the belief of our childhood suddenly works for us. We realize the confusion brought on by our using may have prevented us from giving our belief an honest try. We find that our new belief is not only worth going after but that it is far easier since we will begin to get the results we want. The need for a working belief that we understand and feel good about becomes more important than the fears that hold us back. Once we find what works for us, it will tend to last and we won’t have to go back and redo this Step in every situation. Our obsessions were merely efforts to get what we felt we needed regardless of the cost. Major problems occurred once our need had become too great for us to meet. Unfortunately, our obsessions were more about supplying a feeling than with actually meeting needs. This is where much of our insanity becomes visible. Every time we loosen an old fear, our freedom and responsibility increase. As we let go of old fears that no longer apply to us, we find our faith growing. This state of faith gives us more energy and allows us to take maximum advantage of available resources. We are clear-headed and emotionally relaxed.

The acronym F.E.A.R., False Evidence Appearing Real or f**k Everything And Run, was a real important lesson for many of us. We may have heard it at a convention or at a meeting. Fear prevents us from acting in a manner that we feel goes against our best interest or that we feel will cause pain. When we are in our right minds, fear simply helps us establish boundaries that we can live within without discomfort or feelings of being in jeopardy. As addicts, much of what we knew was only figments of a deranged mind. In many other cases, what we think we know is actually incorrect, yet this fact apparently makes little difference. Many things are in the middle between these extremes and make a difference some of the time. Sorting all this out is quite tedious and troublesome; therefore, it requires daily attention. Freedom in recovery is what we gain that we compare against what our addiction took from us. The longer we are clean the more these things will matter to us, and this is the reason we keep working the Program no matter how long we have been clean. While using, we lived in constant fear of discovery and may feel the same way in the beginning of recovery. What was our real secret? Could it be that we each built our own cages of fear? The principle with which we want to replace fear is faith. We begin to work the Steps and this process teaches us how to go through the pain without using. When we see the insanity of the old, too familiar, paralyzing fear, we develop a healthy F.E.A.R., Face Everything And Recover.

As we grow into this new way of life, we test our feelings and share what is going on in our minds with our sponsor, home group members and other members with whom we have become close in NA. When we drift away from good sense and the general recovery path, we will hear about it from our friends. We must practice something before we can get results. Repetition allows us to gain faith in ourselves and our beliefs through getting what we feel to be positive results repeatedly. If we are having trouble in this process, we may be able to locate the parts of our belief system that are not working for us. Once we have found our belief and gotten adjusted to it, we settle into it in a reasonable time. Confirmation of our belief is another way that we express our adoption of a belief or a system of beliefs.

Of course, energy is what it takes to live and experience life to any degree. One of the problems that we encounter from a lack of a positive belief is that we can be very active with little or no noticeable achievement. Time and energy seem to mysteriously disappear as our needs become greater. When we start learning how to live, we have less wasted motion and we begin to gain the ability to work towards several goals simultaneously. Accessing parts of our minds that had become dormant in our active addiction, we find ourselves able to do things easily that had seemed impossible before. Belief in a loving, spiritual power is not something that only relates to one part of our life. It is a wrap-around, through and through kind of experience. In truth, most who have experienced this kind of spiritual breakthrough agree that it goes beyond what words can express. We feel somewhat restricted in sharing in this area, because we can only make comparisons. We try to share what it has been like for us, but we know that each one of us has come to a place where we have to find what works for us personally. Change is noticeable almost immediately when we gain a working belief. Release from our insanity guarantees results in the areas that are important to us. We make goals of what we care about and can achieve while learning to identify and let go of obsessions that we thought were goals. If we don’t believe that there is a power that will help us, we are imprisoned in the classic trap of addiction.

There is a saying that goes, "If you argue for your limitations, they are yours forever." Our potential and capacity to respond will expand only if we want them to and give ourselves permission to do so. We will always be capable of messing-up things by not trying. The concept of a Higher Power involves having faith in something that will take us beyond what we can do on our own. Recovery restores to us many of the things that our disease took away.

We work the Steps in order to recondition ourselves so that we will be able to enjoy some of these benefits. Otherwise, we begin to feel the inadequacy that comes with the restoration of responsibilities and duties that we cannot easily accomplish. The further our addiction has progressed, the less we recall that sanity is the ‘natural’ state for most people. It doesn’t mean greater, superior, better, or less than others. It is our healthy state of being alive and free.

Sanity is also acting in a reasonable manner. When we first notice that our feelings are out of line with reality, we begin to change. The First Step is a catalyst that instigates an initial instability. The shift towards change pushes us to sort out the rest. In this Step, we get to the level of beliefs. We realize that the beliefs we operated under were faulty as well as life threatening. These beliefs were insidious and spread throughout our personality. We have no choice but to reach out for help to overcome the structure of our self-created, self-destructive, and self-centered old beliefs. We finally realized that we couldn’t keep doing the things that we chose to do and call it sane. We felt that we became one with the things that used to seem so separate to us. Our experiences and perceptions of reality change. We feel ourselves more as part of what is happening and no longer need absolute control over everything.

Just as in learning to surf, we quickly learn that we and the wave can come crashing down together. The energy is still there; we have just learned how to stay on top of it more often. Exploring our options allows us to choose the one that will work for us rather than feeling lost in a maze of pathways. Our ‘oneness’ takes less energy, and that means we have more energy left over with which to improve the other areas of our lives.

Step Two is about belief. We come to believe in a loving, caring power, greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity. We never believed that we could live free from our obsession and compulsion to control people and situations around us, because we feared that if we just went with the flow, we would be seriously injured or killed. The pain of the unknown had been too much for us to manage. Realizing that we, in and of ourselves, are not the source of our pain, we are open to letting life go on around us. The knowledge of our powerlessness, trust that we can change, and walking through the pain can help us with this realization. When we stop denying our addiction and gain a belief that a power, greater than ourselves, can help us, we begin to relax. Our ability to believe in a Higher Power that can restore us to sanity makes us feel at one with the forces of that power and the process of spiritual growth.

We also need to allow others to develop their own beliefs so that when the going gets tough they can survive on the faith achieved by their own development system to survive in ongoing recovery. For the first time, we have a vision of a sane life through the example of others who are just like us and who have benefited from taking the leap of faith. We learn that our reality is made up of what we believe, and that when we change our beliefs, we ourselves will change. We grow to love ourselves enough to believe that good things are possible for us and perhaps more importantly that we deserve them. We owe it to ourselves to do the footwork that will lead us to the life that we have always wanted for ourselves but were unable to believe was possible for us.

[stickmonkey]

The insanity referred to in this step is not the insanity of using drugs. We were restored to the sanity of not using drugs by surrendering in Step One. We now find ourselves clean & our lives are still unmanageable in many areas. Much of that unmanageability comes from doing the same thing over & over again, and expecting different results each time. Of course, the results are always the same: unmanageability & insanity in our lives. We can either continue on, doing the best we can, or begin to change with the Second Step as our guide through ongoing recovery.

The next question we begin to ask is: "What is this power greater than ourselves?" Many of us immediately thought this meant our Higher Power, but we are not introduced to a Higher Power until the Third Step. In the Third Step, our Higher Power is the ultimate power greater than ourselves, whatever our concept of a Higher Power is. However, this is not the power greater than ourselves referred to in the Second Step. The best way to explain this is that a power greater than ourselves can change from situation to situation. A power greater than ourselves can be the NA program itself, a sponsor, another person, pain, or something we may read, etc. It is anything that makes us aware of the insanity of a situation if we act out on a defect or negative will.

Now having an understanding of the Second Step, let's look at some of the ways we can apply it in our lives:

The first way that we apply this step when we come into the program is that NA becomes a power greater than ourselves. It helps us get through early problems without using & teaches us different ways of doing things.

Something someone may share with us can become a power greater than ourselves, if it makes us aware of something we are doing in the wrong way, so we can then change it.

Pain, many times, becomes a power greater than ourselves. Sometimes it is the only thing that will make us do something in a different way to get sane results.

A sponsor, or some other recovering addict, can become a power greater than ourselves, by making us aware of the way that we are doing things.

You can now see that a power greater than ourselves can change from situation to situation. The important thing is to be aware of how to apply this principle in your life, so that insanity & unmanageability do not take hold. The principle of the step can be a power greater than ourselves.


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Write about the following questions on a separate sheet of paper & return to your Sponsor:

What is a power greater than myself?
What are the benefits of "coming to believe in a power greater than myself?"
What type of sanity is the second step referring to?
How can I apply this step into my life?
What does this step mean to me?
What is the principle of Step Two?

[stickmonkey]

begining of a process

[carolsongs]

wow, stick monkey, what a work,a teasure, thanks carolsongs

[stickmonkey]

thanks girl......
but alots borowed from the nawol
and the step guide greg p did

[majestyjo]

My service sponsor that I got when I was 5 years clean and sober said to me, "I don't care who or what your Higher Power is as long as it isn't you."