Today, after the meeting, one of the members came up to me and asked me if I could read Greek or Hebrew. He had heard my story and knew that I had been educated in those languages. At least he guessed I had been down that road. I told him it was too long ago and I had forgotten everything but the Latin language.
We were talking about the 2nd Step and he had attempted to explain the word insanity. He asked me about that and I told him that the word “sane” had come from the Latin to mean “clean”. Like “sanitary” and of course “sane”. Same word. If I’m insane, I would be for all intents and purposes be “unclean” or sick. No wonder that the lepers in the New Testament would cry out “unclean”, as a warning to others not to come near them. To be insane would mean to be sick.
And that pretty much describes the 2nd Step. We come here sick. Sick in the body, sick in the spirit, sick in the emotions, and sick in the mind. Especially sick from alcohol. But the 2nd Step tells us that we can get well. The possibility is there, if we surrender and accept a higher power into our lives.
It’s the solution or answer to our problem and opens the door to the program wherein we can find the answer to, not just alcohol, but all the problems in our lives.
And it begins with hope. Hope that I can get over this mental obsession and compulsion to drink. Hope that I can get well and live a better life. A different life than I had been living.
But it begins with trust, another word for belief. I never trusted anyone before I came in. I was to learn trust in the program. I could see the evidence of sober people and came to trust those around me. I knew they had been where I was and they were content in their new lives and were not drinking anymore. I wanted what they had and became willing to go to any lengths to get it. I had to put my life in their hands and thus the first higher power I had was the group.
It worked and is still working to this day after many years.
I was thinking about this today and being grateful to God and the people I have met in this program, who have helped me achieve sobriety and are still my higher power, especially when my faith wavers.