Today we were talking about the second step. In fact, I went back and reread the second step the other night.
I was talking to a friend today, who has been struggling, and I couldn’t help but think of the way this step has worked in his life and mine. Here’s the jumping off point. Came to believe in a power greater than ourselves who can restore us to sanity. This is one step which is constantly evolving in my life, and indeed in the lives of so many.
The very fact that this is the message Ebby Thatcher brought to Bill. The introduction to all of us back into a way of life we sorely missed. The idea of something more powerful than all of us, who could lift the obsession to drink from our alcoholic minds and put us on the road to recovery. The idea that this power was centered in each group we go to. The fact that alcoholics, just like us, would have the door open onto a new world of freedom and happiness, beyond our own thoughts. A power, who could enable us to change our minds and our lives and channel these into a way that really works. How wonderful.
How often I have gone to meetings, full of trouble and weighed down with world outside those rooms. And how often, just sitting there, to feel all these things begin to lift and my physical body begin to relax. What a relief. And to find my mind beginning to open to new possibilities. No wonder that at first I found myself choosing the group as my higher power.
But as time went on, I found myself progressing into new concepts of this higher power. A process which still continues as I go through each day.
My troubled friend is finding his way to clarity and is beginning to experience relief. He exclaimed what a wonderful thing it is to experience divine providence. The idea of the Grace of God in our lives. All this began with that second step. It began, when Ebby sat with Bill in his kitchen on that fateful day. It continues through this very day.
Just thinking about this today.
Ahhh…imagining that irresistible “new car” smell?