I could be wrong. But it wouldn’t be the first time.
What I was thinking, as our meeting went on today, how big a part the 2nd Step plays in this program. What struck me was that the 2nd Step is a theme, which runs through the rest of the Steps.
I mean, I came in and surrendered and accepted two things almost immediately. That I was powerless over alcohol and that my life was unmanageable. So, what is the solution for that? Right after that comes the 2nd Step. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And whether I could specifically name that higher power didn’t matter. The fact is that I needed a higher power to help me, not only to empower me to live this life, but to launch me into this spiritual life I needed to dedicate myself to in order to get sober, but to remain sober.
To accomplish this I was going to have to do the next thing: the rest of the Steps. All of them. And I couldn’t ignore the most important part of this. The need of my higher power to help me along the way. The BB seems to support this, because, right after the 9th Step, it says that the sanity we were told this higher power “could” restore us to is now a fact. For by this time sanity will have returned.
And what is that sanity being given to us? Freedom from the thought of a drink. And where does it come from? Our higher power. My higher power. Because that is exactly my experience.
The experience of many of those I know.
Just taking a look at the promises, I have to ask myself, where they came from. Not from me. But they are the result of applying these Steps to my life. They, as the return to sanity, are part of what I understand is the spiritual awakening.
I thought about all of this, as we talked about the 9th Step today. I thought, how else could I have been enabled to make those amends? By myself I would never have had the courage to do just that. I had to take my higher power right into the room with me. I was not alone.
I thought, when I got home, that, whether I am conscious of it or not, all that goes on in my life today is dependent on my higher power, or the God of my understanding, as I have come to know it.
Whether what I was thinking is correct or not, I am grateful for all the help I have received from my higher power. I know I am sober for all of that.