The Second Step
Part 2 - Updated

"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

Thank you for letting me share my views and experiences with the Second Step with you this month. Please keep in mind that these are only my views and interpretations based on my personal experience. I do not speak for Overeaters Anonymous or any other organization. The Steps are not static, dogmatic, or inflexible, we each bring them alive in highly personal ways when we practice them in our daily affairs. We each can experience them in different ways, on different levels, at different times, and even for different reasons. Our understanding of them and applications of them may be quite different, and that I believe, is part of their beauty.

Just what is a power greater than ourselves?

On pages 44 - 45 of the Big Book is says, “If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly. Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?”

Reprinted from Alcoholics Anonymous, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.

If we carefully read the Big Book, it tells us that we can choose our own concept of a “higher power” or “power greater than ourselves.” For many of us who already have a positive regard for and belief in a supreme being, this can feel like a pretty simple and straight-forward choice. The Big Book and O.A. literature, use the terms “God” and “higher power” extensively and interchangeably and a majority can easily relate to that. By letting each member define their own conception of this higher power, the founders cleverly designed into the program a way that many various religious denominations and belief systems could co-exist in a single fellowship without sparking religious debate. They even devoted a chapter of the Big Book to those alcoholics who were agnostic or atheist. They said that something like half of their early members were of that type. But as long as they could become willing to believe that there might be a power greater than themselves, a foundation for spiritual growth was laid.

An old-timer in A.A. once told me that “acceptance always comes before understanding.” He said that was the very definition of faith. Step Two takes a certain amount of this kind of faith. Faith to me means that I choose to believe something even though I may not have all the facts to support it. Step Two says in essence, that I came to believe that, with the right help, I could get better. This is very different than the magical thinking I did before I would start each new diet. That thinking was insane, irrational, and went against all the logical proof my own history of dieting could have told me.

Last week we tried to envision what a life of stability and balance based on sound beliefs and behaviors would be like. Step Two involves the realization that we need help to achieve that life and that with this new source of help, we can develop those sound beliefs and behaviors that lead to the stable and balanced life we deserve. We each make our program of recovery highly personal because we have the freedom to choose our own source of help and how we will relate to that source of help. We need to ask ourselves just what “power greater than ourselves” we will be willing to trust to aid us on our journey of recovery—our pathway to sane thinking and acting. This power needs to be believable and honest. We will need to trust this power when the going gets rough. This power needs to—not be us, not be food, not be diets, nor the scales. We have already admitted in Step One and proven to ourselves that we cannot beat this eating disorder with our will power and old ideas.

Since this is often called a spiritual program many of us naturally turn to the traditions and faiths of our childhood and choose our higher power accordingly. This Step is not a religious exercise, though many recovering people weave traditional religious practices into their application of the Steps. Religion is not a component of the Twelve Steps, although the process often strengthens the belief systems many of us do follow and for others, leads us to discover and accept new belief systems for ourselves. What it all boils down to is that we find a personal higher power that we can trust to help us, a higher power that makes sense to us.

Some people believe that a higher power can be anything including an inanimate object. They say if you have a problem with all the “God” stuff, you can choose a light bulb, a pet rock, or a rabbit’s foot. I disagree. It pays to read these Steps very carefully if you are seriously interested in recovery. A higher power is something that is stronger, greater, and more knowledgeable than you. It has energy that is independent of you and is capable of working with you, or through you, to promote recovery. “Higher” = advanced/ greater than. “Power” = ability, strength, energy. Ask a rabbit’s foot or a lamp post to help you when you are alone at night trying to fend off those crazy obsessive thoughts that usually precede a binge and see what happens.

There are countless ways to define a higher and/or helping power(s). It is often said that to start with, we can use the power of the OA group itself. This is enough to allow our recovery to progress. The group encompasses much experience with the program of recovery, much love, acceptance, and support. It is a good source of information about how to work the Steps, keep from binging, and keep focused on the important issues of recovery. The group is a source of many of the “tools” of the program such as the telephone, sponsors, literature, service work, and a place to feel accepted by hearing other people’s stories that are much like your own. That all adds up to a power much greater than ourselves.

We can also incorporate the services of trained professional helpers, doctors, therapists, clergy, supportive family members, and understanding friends as part of a system we consider our higher and/or helping power(s). Some people have used the power of Love, and others, Mother Nature. That’s why I am so fond of the term, higher power, when I am at meetings or sharing on the Internet. It allows me the freedom to believe and feel whatever I need to about my sources of help, higher powers, and God, but I don’t have to explain them or try and justify it to anyone. But that’s just my feelings. I understand and accept other terms as long as there is no sermons being given at meetings or proselytizing.

There is one more thing I want to share on the choice of a power greater than ourselves this week. No one person is capable of being a very good higher power. Not even a sponsor who has decades of recovery in the program and has been on the lecture circuit for years and seems to exude the program. It’s not fair to ask this much of any single human being. Human beings are fallible and vulnerable to relapse and a host of other problems. Even the old-timer sponsor is just as close to relapse as the first compulsive bite. Please cast your net as wide as possible. Even a particular OA group can let you down if it gets to far removed from the Twelve Traditions—which has been known to happen. The Fellowship as a whole is much less likely to let you down. A group of diverse people is less likely to let you down than a single individual. The stronger your higher and helping power is, the better, lest they fall off their pedestals and take with them your recovery and sanity.

Many of us have never learned to really trust others. We may have a most difficult time reaching out for any kind of help. We may have an overwhelming fear of admitting our own vulnerabilities and neediness. Perhaps we are still living behind closed doors in almost total isolation. We can’t get to meetings or our past experiences with God and religion have been so negative that this Step feels next to impossible. Remember, you can define your own higher power and, you can change that definition as you grow in recovery. You can also keep it if it continues to work fine for you. Certainly, the more helping/healing powers you can include in your personal repertoire of powers greater than yourself, the better. Maybe Internet support groups are a good starting point if you are homebound and having problems with spiritual concepts. All journeys start with the first small step. The point here is that it is up to each of us to get the ball rolling. We have tried doing it by ourselves and found it didn’t work. Though we can take Step Two piecemeal as it says in the AA 12 and 12, we don’t want to fool ourselves into thinking that some new words or constructs about a higher power isn’t still the same old will-power and self-knowledge that has always failed us, in disguise. Our disorder is just that cunning and powerful. Change, even when for the good, can be frightening. We may be miserable but often we are at some level of dysfunctional comfort with our misery. It represents the known world to us. The fear of something new keeps us hanging tenaciously upon the old. So the choices we make at this Step are of a critical importance.

Questions for journaling and contemplation.