Step 02

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

1. Primary principle(s): faith, hope, optimism, willingness
2. Other principles: humility, trust, tolerance, surrender

Readings:

• Big Book (Appendix II)  ~pp. 567 , 47-48, 53
• AA Comes of Age pp. 166-67, 257, 262
• As Bill Sees It p. 325
• 12  Steps and 12 Traditions pp.25-33
• “The Spiritual Angle of AA”, (by  Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker) October, 1955 AA Grapevine
• “Alcoholics Give Famous Producer Moving Experience”, August, 1944 AA Grapevine
• “AA on Toast”, February 1956 AA Grapevine
• “Step Two: I Didn’t Drink And I Didn’t Run”, February 2007 AA Grapevine
• “How an Atheist Works the Steps”, March 2003 AA Grapevine
• “We Are Not a Bunch of Religious Fanatics!”, November 1995 AA Grapevine

When I came into the meetings of A.A. and saw the 2nd step on the wall, my heart sank.

It’s a long story but the short version is that I had made up my mind at about the age of 6 that, while there was definitely a god (no question then, no question now), I had made a choice and I was not on god’s side.  If my recovery depended on this god (OK, I’d looked ahead to the next step too), I knew myself to be screwed.

Clancy I. talks about the “gift of desperation” - an expression of the seed of Step 2 might be that I’m “Desperate enough to take actions that I don’t yet believe in.”

Another (citation lost) has said: “…belief is the willingness to take actions that I don’t think will work to solve a problem that I don’t have the power to deal with”.

An interesting distinction is that of coming to believe as a process as opposed to a destination - belief as a process seems to be how many of us can stay sober until we have the educational experience sufficient to our own recovery.

The actions of AA don’t care why you take them.  You can just be a “brown noser” to fit in initially but you can still experience the results.