Step Two

[bluidkiti]

NA 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 **** 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.

[MajestyJo]

Step Two

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

The moment they read Step Two, most A.A. newcomers are confronted with a dilemma, sometimes a serious one. How often have we heard them cry out, "Look what you people have done to us! You have convinced us that we are alcoholics and that our lives are unmanageable. Having reduced us to a state of absolute helplessness, you now declare that none but a Higher Power can remove our obsession. Some of us won't believe in God, others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.

In Step One, I came to the doors of recovery, in Step Two, I come to and start to be aware of life around me. I have started to have hope that the program just might work for me. I see others with not only months, but years of recovery and I am praying that whatever they have found, I can too and it will work for me.

I had believed in God most of my life, I knew there was one but wasn't too sure of what He thought of me. I didn't think He had too high of an opinion of me according to what I had been told about Him. I really didn't think I could place too much trust in that area. AA as a whole was my Higher Power when I first came in, then it became the Woman's Discussion Group that I joined. From there, my concept and relationship with a Higher Power grew.

To be continued...

[MajestyJo]

Yes, you've got us over the barrel, all right--but where do we go from here?" Let's look first at the case of the one who says he won't believe--the belligerent one. He is in a state of mind which can be described only as savage. His whole philosophy of life, in which he so gloried, is threatened.

It's bad enough, he thinks, to admit alcohol has him down for keeps. But now, still smarting from that admission, he is faced with something really impossible. How he does cherish the thought that man, risen so majestically from a single cell in the primordial ooze, is the spearhead of evolution and therefore the only god that his universe knows! Must he renounce all this to save himself?

There was an emptiness within me, the loss of what was, and I needed something of a spiritual nature to fill up that void. I was told it was a spiritual program not a religious one and all I had known was religion. What I knew of it in some ways, I could accept and in other areas I could not. I started to religiously go to meetings.

When I got a year sober, I found out I didn't know who God was. I started my spiritual journey. I don't believe I came to a full understanding of my God until I was seven years sober.

I had believed in God, but didn't believe He believed in me. I was told that "Thou shall not..." all my life and I had tried to prove everyone wrong, so therefore I felt that I had been rejected by God and He didn't want a part of me." If He wanted me to act the way I had been told I should, I wasn't too sure I wanted a part of Him.

I didn't like the concept of just picking and choosing the things I liked and reject the rest, just because I didn't like it. That had me back playing God with my life. I liked the concept of practicing the principles of the Steps in my life. Walking my talk, surrendering to a Power that was working in my life and in those of the people I saw around me. I had to learn to respect other people's choices and their beliefs.

I went looking for God and everywhere I looked He was there. Then I realized like when I was using and moved from place to place, I took me. I was the problem. When I moved from place to place, I took me with me too. The difference was that I had surrendered to that Power and it was going with me.

It wasn't so much my concept of who God was, I don't really want to know, because then I might stop looking for Him. If I know who God is, I figure I will have passed from this earthly realm.

...a single cell in the primordial ooze

This is how I felt when I came into recovery. The lowest of the low. Through working this Step, a little as a time as it says, my God raised me up to a Higher level of consciousness and awareness and allowed me to be me and loved me for who I am, not as He would have me be.

I had to renouce the past. What brought me here would take me back out if I didn't work on it and change it. I couldn't continue to act out in my disease if I wanted to heal and recover. No more "I'm an alcoholic you know!" No more "I'm an addict you know!" No more, "I am married to an alcoholic addict, I am the mother of ..., I am a friend of...." I was now responsible for my own recovery and my own well being. I had to stop looking for people, places and things to make me feel better. In today, my Higher Power utilizes people, places and things to show me a better way of living.

To be continued...

[MajestyJo]

At this juncture, his A.A, sponsor usually laughs. This, the newcomer thinks, is just about the last straw. This is the beginning of the end. And so it is: the beginning of the end of his old life, and the beginning of his emergence into a new one. His sponsor probably says, "Take it easy. The hoop you have to jump through is a lot wider than you think. At least I've found it so. So did a friend of mine who was a one-time vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but he got through with room to spare."

"Well," says the newcomer, "I know you're telling me the truth. It's no doubt a fact that A.A, is full of people who once believed as I do. But just how, in these circumstances, does a fellow `take it easy'? That's what I want to know."

"That," agrees the sponsor, "is a very good question indeed. I think I can tell you exactly how to relax. You won't have to work at it very hard, either.

When I came in, it was suggested that I get a group, get a sponsor, and get active. Active in service in the group, setting it up, putting chairs away, making coffee, doing dishes, standing at the door as a greeter. My sponsor said, "You are only half a hand shake you know." This Step is one of the reasons I needed a sponsor. I thought I knew who God was and didn't have much faith. My sponsor shared at a meeting that she was 18 years sober and her Higher Power was a leprechaun sitting on her shoulder. I figured if anyone could stay sober with a Higher Power like that, then maybe she could help me. She ended up firing me and said that I was too sick, and she wasn't well enough to give me the attention I needed. I later went back to her and asked her again when I had about three years. She made me aware that a Higher Power wasn't this preconceived idea that I had form childhood and that I had to make God personal. My service sponsor told me that I could believe in any HP as long as it wasn't me. For me it was a process and as I healed I gained new awareness. God was doing for me what I hadn't been able to do for myself. I didn't put a face on God, it was a Power that worked in my life that allowed me to stay clean and sober, that guided and directed me one day at a time. God had always been that distant being out there busy making the world go round. My Higher Power for me was the Spirit of God that came to me when I surrendered and asked for Help. I like to think of it as my Higher Self or Inner Self or the (W)Holy Spirit. That same sponsor told me that she thought that my Higher Power spoke to me through music. I learned to look at nature and became aware of the power and majesty of it and knowing that if a blade of grass, a small leaf bud, a tiny guppy, etc. could all get just what they need (the right amount of sun, air, water, etc.) then why shouldn't my needs be met. I became a part of the whole. As I read one time, "A stone doesn't have legs because it has people to move it from where it is to where it need to go." I got very involved in crystals and the healing properties of them. I look at them as God's gift to me and each has a message for me if I am open to receive it. I carried an Amethyst for many years because of the following information:

Amethyst
Amethyst has long been called the "sobriety stone." In ancient Rome, crushed amethyst was added to wine cups to prevent drunkenness. It is said to assist with healing alcoholism, compulsive behaviors, and addictions of all kinds. Amethyst brings energies in mystical realms of stability, peace, calm, balance, courage and inner strength. It is often used in metaphysics and crystal healing to protect against psychic attacks. On the spiritual level, amethyst is said to help open to communication with angels, telepathy and other psychic abilities. It is thus an excellent stone for meditation or dream work, past life work, and to help you see your path. It has also been used to help ease the pain of grief, and promote happiness. Amethyst is reputed to be beneficial when dealing with legal problems, and money issues, which can lead to prosperity and abundance. Amethyst is also used as protection for travelers. Physically amethyst is said by spiritual healers and mystical lore to heal the withdrawal symptoms of any sort of addiction, help with headaches, insomnia, arthritis, pain relief, circulatory system issues, endocrine system problems, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, immune system deficiencies, and general healing. Amethyst is associated with the brow and the crown chakras.

Metaphysical & Mystical Healing Properties Lore

There were many people who told me God meant "Good Orderly Direction" and "Group of Drunks/Drug Addicts" showing me a better way to live. I know a woman who says, "My Parents" instead of God when she says the Lord's Prayer.

A lot of things I didn't know, but I learned to open my mind and listen to others and their beliefs and concepts and decide for myself, what God meant to me. I co-sponsored a fellow who belonged to S.O.S. <http://www.okcsos.com/> who was an atheist and he stayed sober for a year, relapsed and then got sober again and now does Bible Study with a church organization.

I believe in miracles. I am one.

To be continued...

[MajestyJo]

This program is suggested. If you want to stay clean and sober, then it is suggested that you do certain things: Don't pick up, go to meetings, listen to learn and learn to listen, get a sponsor (someone you can identify and connect with or a person who has something you want), work the Steps, learn to apply them to your life, and get active in service within your group. I found these to be 'darn well betters' or you will go back out and use. I am grateful to a friend who did my research for me. I didn't have to go back out, he showed me it wasn't any better out there. He use to say, "Sit in the front row, you can hear better." I said, "When if you hear you don't seem to listen, I'll sit farther back and listen harder." It took me a long time to move away from the back row.

The whole picture is very overwhelming. I didn't get this way overnight, I couldn't expect myself to heal overnight. It wasn't a quick fix program, it took time, and all I had to do was take it one day at a time. I just had to deal with one day feelings, one days thoughts, one days actions, and when something from the past came into today, I dealt with it or left it there until such a times as I felt up to handling it. I tried to live in the day and not project into tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes, when it gets here, it is today!

I had to have an open mind. My best thinking got me to the doors of recovery. I had to learn to be open to other people's ideas and concepts. They said, "Take what you need and leave the rest on the shelf." As a friend of mine use to say, "If you can't use it, perhaps you can pass it on to someone who can."

My sponsor told me to quit analizing everythng. I want to know the whys and wherefores of everything. She said, "You can't intellectualize this program, just know it is and that it works."

My experience had been a religious background. It hadn't stopped me from becoming an addict or an alcoholic. I found that I had to find what worked for me. I saw AA working for other people, and had to have faith that it would work for me. There were so many ideas of who God was I was confused and didn't know what I believed. I had to make God personal. Slowly things changed in my life and I could see the results of the program working. AA itself became my Higher Power until such a time as I could find out who God was to me. It was my understanding of God, not someone else's that I had to discover. I ended up taking some of my old ways of thinking and beliefs and bringing in the new ideas and concepts which made my God bigger than anything that I had to face on this recovery journey.

They talk of God in Steps Two and Three and yet it wasn't until I finished the other Steps that I had true knowledge of what and who God was to me.

To be continued...

[MajestyJo]

"This is only one man's opinion based on his own experience, of course. I must quickly assure you that A.A.'s tread innumerable paths in their quest for faith. If you don't care for the one I've suggested, you'll be sure to discover one that suits if only you look and listen. Many a man like you has begun to solve the problem by the method of substitution. You can, if you wish, make A.A., itself your `higher power.' Here's a very large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem. In this respect they are certainly a power greater than you, who have not even come close to a solution. Surely you can have faith in them. Even this minimum of faith will be enough.

You will find many members who have crossed the threshold just this way. All of them will tell you that, once across, their faith broadened and deepened. Relieved of the alcohol obsession, their lives unaccountably transformed, they came to believe in a Higher Power, and most of them began to talk of God."

As I stated earlier, I found faith in AA and in one sense it became my Higher Power. I heard the phrase "Good Orderly Direction" and came up with my own "Divine Orderly Good." I called it the God/Dog syndrome. It doesn't matter if your concept of God is different than anyone else's. What was important was finding my own personal belief. When I saw the program working in my life, I developed a deeper faith and was able to tap into the power that I found in the rooms. I call a meeting a "God Village." When I surrendered and asked for help, it is my belief that I was connected to the Spirit of God and the same is true for everyone who is at a meeting. Whether they choose to tap into that Power, acknowledge it, and utilize it is up to them. I believe it is there and when I surrender, I am empowered to do what I need to stay clean and sober in today.

To be continued...

[MajestyJo]

Consider next the plight of those who once had faith, but have lost it. There will be those who have drifted into indifference, those filled with
self-sufficiency who have cut themselves off, those who have become prejudiced against religion, and those who are downright defiant because God has failed to fulfill their demands. Can A.A, experience tell all these they may still find a faith that works?

Sometimes A.A, comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting. They have tried the way of faith and the way of no faith.

Since both ways have proved bitterly disappointing, they have concluded there is no place whatever for them to go. The roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice, and defiance often prove more solid and formidable for these people than any erected by the unconvinced agnostic or even the militant atheist. Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can't be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God. Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion. He thinks himself lost to the comfort of any conviction at all. He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic, or the atheist. He is the bewildered one.

This was very true for me. I didn't have much faith in my religious beliefs in fact I had a lot of resentments. It seemed like I had missed out of a lot of things in life as a result of the strict structure I was brought up in. Because I rebelled against the church and the ideas, I shut myself off from anything to do with it. I took my son to Sunday School and he rebelled and didn't' want to go. Said he didn't like it and wouldn't say why. He was only five. When we went to my husband's church when I remarried, he said he didn't like that church and if we had to go, let us go back to our own. When I remarried the church said I had to raise him in that faith and they asked me to join too. I said, "In the Bible it says 'Make a joyful noise onto the Lord' and your music is anything but joyful, it is down right mournful. Thanks but no thanks." My son went up to visit with his father when he was 15. He had him help to build his church and then had him baptized in his church. My son came home and said, "Mom if dad calls and wants me to go to visit tell him I am working." He didn't even have a job. I was furious. I believe faith is a personal thing and he had a right to choose or not choose for himself. Today he has his own belief and he doesn't go to church. I have mine, and I choose not to go to church either although I have thought of going back again. My only reason for going though is the social aspect of the church community. I can be open to their teachings and for the most part I agree. I just get hung up on the 'sinner' and the thought of good and bad. For me it is needy souls searching for something outside of themselves to make themselves feel good. I was a sick person trying to get well. Not a bad person trying to get good. The goodness was already inside of me. The problem was I set it aside in order to fit in or because I didn't feel worthy.

I have gone back to church, left and went back again, only to leave again. I related the pastors messages to those I have heard in AA. I love the music, grew up on Gospel music and still love to hear and sing it. I find strength and comfort through it.

A part of me found it difficult to see people in church and not walking their talk. I saw a lot of them as hypocrites who went there with their Sunday best, and then left to be their other self when they walked out the door. I didn't see a lot of Whole people. I found them very judgmental on the whole and if you didn't believe in there way, you were in the wrong and they had very closed minds. I saw a lot of people trying to be Holy but like they say in the program, it is a 24 hour a day program, not a 2-4 hour a program. My Higher Power is the (W)Holy Spirit.

To be continued...