Step Two

[MajestyJo]

Our Path

I just spent several hours with someone from my group, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. This woman insisted that the only way I would make progress in my program was to go to her church and succumb to her religious rules. She pushed and insisted, and insisted and pushed. She's been in the program so much longer than I have. I kept thinking that she must know what she's talking about. But it didn't feel right. And now I feel crazy, afraid, guilty, and ashamed.

--Anonymous

The spiritual path and growth promised to us by the Twelve Steps does not depend on any religious belief. They are not contingent upon any denomination or sect. They are not, as the traditions of Twelve Step programs state, affiliated with any religious denomination or organization.

We do not have to allow anyone to badger us about religion in recovery. We do not have to allow people to make us feel ashamed, afraid, or less than because we do not subscribe to their beliefs about religion.

We do not have to let them do it to us in the name of God, love, or recovery.

The spiritual experience we will find as a result of recovery and the Twelve Steps will be our own spiritual experience. It will be a relationship with God, a Higher Power, as we understand God.

Each of us must find our own spiritual path. Each of us must build our own relationship with God, as we understand God. Each of us needs a Power greater than ourselves. These concepts are critical to recovery.

So is the freedom to choose how to do that.

Higher Power, help me know that I don't have to allow anyone to shame or badger me into religious beliefs. If they confuse that with the spirituality available in recovery, help me give their issue back to them. Help me discover and develop my own spirituality, a path that works for me. Guide me, with Divine Wisdom, as I grow spiritually.

Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater
than ourselves could restore us to sanity

"When we encountered A.A., the fallacy of our defiance
was revealed. At no time had we asked what God’s will
was for us; instead we had been telling Him what it ought
to be. No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy Him,
too. Belief meant reliance, not defiance. In A.A. we saw the
fruits of this belief: men and women spared from alcohol’s
final catastrophe. We saw them meet and transcend their
other pains and trials. We saw them calmly accept impossible
situations, seeking neither to run nor to recriminate. This was
not only faith; it was faith that worked under all conditions.
We soon concluded that whatever price in humility we must
pay, we would pay.'"

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg. 31

I always had a belief in God but didn't have much faith in Him because I was told that I was a bad girl and everything I did was a sin. I walked in fear of being struck down at any moment and yet I didn't know how to change. There were so many rules and though shall nots that I didn't feel like I could live that way. I didn't have faith in myself, and it wasn't until I came to believe that God had faith in me that I could find it within myself. It was through the program that I found that faith.

From: "Changing Beliefs"

Slowly and painfully, I became aware of myself. I began
to see it wasn’t true that I didn’t believe in anything.
Rather, I had believed in the wrong things:
I had believed I needed a drink for confidence.
I had believed I was unattractive.
I had believed I was unworthy.
I had believed no one loved me.
I had believed I never had a break.

Someone said at a closed meeting, “There is good in all
of us. Seek it out, nurture it, tend it, and it will flourish.”
So I began searching for the positives within me. I
realized that my feeling of inferiority was just one aspect
of ego, and the arrogance I projected was the other. I
must find the center median. So I tried to act as if:
AA was giving me confidence.
I had an attractive personality, even though I was not beautiful.
I was worthy, like all others.
I loved myself and could therefore love others.
Faith was freeing me from the fear that had always gripped me.

Came to Believe…, pages 103-104

I came, I came to, and I came to believe the program would work for me. The more I stay sober, the crazier I get. Thankfully it isn't the same insanity of when I was using. Some times I just can't believe myself, what was I thinking?