The Second Step
Part 4 - Updated

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

My name is Dave and I am recovering from compulsive overeating, alcoholism, and drug addiction. I also have a chronic psychiatric illness that I treat, in part, through the Twelve Steps. I am grateful today that my illnesses and the Twelve Steps, brought me to a place where I found a faith that works for me. Something that I can always rely on to guide me through the toughest times life can throw at me. This was no easy Step for me.

While still a young teenager I left home and turned away from the religion of my mother. She had a fanatical belief in a “faith healing” religion and ruled our household through a constant barrage of condemning religious rhetoric coupled with what was often bazaar and violent behavior. I spent years running from the nightmares and the persecuting voices in my head telling me that I was evil and should do violent harm to myself. Today I am free from those voices and my concept of God has changed entirely. Step Two is sometimes difficult for me to write about as it has taken years for me to heal, to some degree, from the traumas of my childhood. Many scars remain even though the wounds have healed. Much of that healing was made possible by the very nature of the Second Step whereby I could choose my own concept of a higher power—or God. This process started when I got clean and sober back in 1984 after I attended my very first 12 Step meeting. The concept of a higher power of “my understanding” became the cornerstone of the largest part of my therapy and healing in the following years.

Today, I understand that my mother suffered from an untreated mental illness. Her views of religion and God were a reflection of her own tragic pain and distorted thought processes. Today I feel sadness and forgiveness about these parts of my past rather than the fear and anger that use to lead to psychotic episodes and deadly addictions. I found a new freedom by working and understanding this Step in a very personal way.

When I was first exposed to a 12-Step group and the Steps, I was terrified that I would be expected to “get religion.” Upon first reading, “The Big Book” sounded very religious to me. I thought that the A.A. meetings I attended must be filled with ultra-religious people because so many were constantly expressing their gratitude for and attributing all their recovery successes directly to God. Some used the term higher power. At the time I attributed this to being an obvious code word for “God” in the most religious sense.

I wanted sobriety more than anything, yet the mere idea of God would often trigger the symptoms of my psychiatric disorder. I left many a meeting early and abruptly because someone would be sharing using religious sounding phrases and I would freak out—literally loose contact with reality. It wasn’t that I was angry, against religion, anti-Christian, or even an atheist. It was that I had a serious mental illness. I was newly sober and in a very unstable period in my life. Memories and feelings of childhood trauma that I had long kept at bay through the chronic use of mood altering chemicals were beginning to surface and I had little defense against them. The symptoms that would often get triggered by hearing this “God talk” were: panic attacks, dissociative states, unaccountable loss of periods of time, and I’d hear voices in my head telling me that I was innately evil and should kill myself—specifically, my mother’s voice, followed sometimes by acts of self-harm but always by periods of deep depression.

I realize this is not a common situation for most people who get into Twelve Step groups but it’s my story and I think it shows a little about how Step Two can work. I was lucky to have a therapist who understood the Steps and seemed to grasp how strong my fears and feelings were around the subject of God and religion. She helped me to come up with my own concept of a higher power. With her help, I decided to use my AA group and the treatment team at the hospital. We talked and talked very carefully in a safe environment about the word ‘god’ and how it could mean different things to different people. She said that I could make up my own brand new meaning for that word. Through a lot of therapy I was eventually able to think and believe that “God” meant “love” as in the specific love I felt from my A.A. home group. I then went through a period of practicing immediately thinking “Love” after hearing the word “God” and before the psychological triggering took place to set off my symptoms. The love of the group was something that I had actually felt in my life by sticking with my program of recovery and attending many meetings. People learned who I was and even showed compassion for me. This to me was a very spiritual and healing transformation. Love, it seemed to me, was a thing that was somehow at least partially spiritual, but it was a felt thing, a palpable feeling—almost a tangible thing. I felt much acceptance and love at my group. Meetings were still very difficult at times, but slowly I got better at being able to hear religious sounding talk and not freaking out. No doubt that getting the proper medication was a necessary part of the picture too.

I had always loved the forests and streams of the Pacific Northwest and was happiest when I could be out camping and fishing in nature. One time I realized I felt a very familiar feeling when I was sitting out under an ancient tree by the Metolious River. It felt very much like that same power of love I felt from my AA group. It felt warm, positive, nurturing, and safe. It was then that I expanded my definition of higher power to be or include, “Mother Nature.”

Over the next few years I added to and modified this definition many times. I eventually changed this definition back to “Love” but in a much broader sense than just the love I felt at my AA group. I kept remembering a little tacky looking plastic wall plaque that my mother had that fascinated me when I was a little boy. All it said on it was “God is Love”. I sort of turned that around in my mind to “Love is God” and used it for a long time as my concept of a higher power. It seemed to me that it took a lot of love for such beauty to exist as in my beloved forests and for something so powerful and healing as my 12 Step fellowship and the Steps to be created.

I eventually healed enough that I was able to do some fairly extensive research into many religions including an in-depth review of the religion of my mother. Studying her religion was a most healthy thing for me to do. To look at it objectively and come to terms with some of my childhood issues, then to finally reject her religion from an informed and adult perspective. After letting go of the old baggage I had carried for years that was her religion, I was able to make informed self-loving choices about my own religious choices, belief systems, and faith. I no longer fear religion or religious talk. I have a very close relationship with my higher power and I owe it largely to the Second Step. I didn’t have to have much, if any, “faith” to build my faith. I didn’t have to believe in “God” to find my God. All I had to do is understand that I couldn’t stay sober without help and that with help, healing was possible for me. That’s the Second Step, "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

I found a great deal of emotional relief and release immediately after realizing I didn’t have to recover all by myself. Indeed I could not—and that was good news to me once I fully accepted it. I had always prided myself on being totally self-sufficient yet this view of myself was as unrealistic as most of the rest of my thinking. What I really was, was constantly defensive and filled with fear. Mostly, I had been afraid of trusting anybody or anything outside of myself. I had been burned very badly by trusting even my parents so I learned at an early age not to trust. Or I should say, I never learned how to trust. Trusting was not a safe thing to do. It felt like a life threatening situation to me. Yet, when I combined my willingness to get better with a most gentle and palatable explanation for “a power greater than myself” it changed my life completely.

For those who choose not to believe in a monotheistic view of a higher power or who are atheist there need be no problem with OA or any of the 12 Steps. On page 13 of “The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous” is says, “OA doesn’t tell us we have to believe in God—only that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We are invited to define that Power however we wish and relate to it in whatever way works for us.” It also goes on to explain that, “Ours is a spiritual program, not a religious one.” Spiritual can be defined as “Concerned with or affecting the spirit” One definition of spirit is, “a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character.” So when it says, “we grow along spiritual lines” this can be viewed as a process of self-improvement or gaining in wisdom, patience, humility, understanding, and compassion. There is just no end to how individuals can implement the principles of the Steps into their personal lives. Even the word GOD can be turned into a pretty effective acronym. (G)ood (O)rderly (D)irection. If it works for you, use it. Good orderly direction is something we all need in our recoveries.

Contempt prior to investigation

It is too easy to let mere words stop us from getting the recovery we deserve. "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." – Herbert Spencer, as quoted on page 570, Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book).

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

Questions for journaling and contemplation.

Well I’m all out of specific questions for this Step. I honestly can’t think of any that aren’t jumping ahead or redundant. I’ve shared my story about how important this Step has been in my life and tried to offer several ways of looking at it. I would suggest journaling your own story and experiences with the Second Step and welcome you to share that along with any additional thoughts and feelings including what your definition of a higher and/or helping power(s) is. There are no right or wrong answers and no good or bad stories.