Two Steppin'

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

Patrick
      I think Step 2, for me, was the first actual confrontation with fear that I found in The Program. I feared not being in control. I feared having to believe in this god that I didn't have a relationship with. Came in and I was like... trying to find God in a bar. Or trying to escape God, I should say, in bars. In dope houses. And everywhere. Coming to A.A. thinking, "Okay, I'm going to escape God in A.A. meetings." And sure enough: everyone talking about God when I get here. And I was like, "Damn it! I can't get away!" I can't escape 'em. But I really think that that was the main thing of why I was so hesitant on Step 2, because I feared a Power greater than myself.
      And I just kept coming back and kept coming back and started to work the steps and understood what was going on as far as... yeah, I was insane. Yeah. Oh, there's no doubt. No doubt. My record shows that and there's two little boys that can bear witness to alla that and two old viejitos in San Angelo that'll say, "That motherfucker was insane." That was all really, really evident.
      The God thing, man, I didn't understand, but I saw it in You. The whole miracle thing was what got to me. Because I came in and I was happy, joyous, and free, and I was like, "Yay! A.A. this!" and "A.A. that!" and "Gonna get my Bill W. tattoos!" and all that stuff. I was gung-ho, man! And ol' boy was like, "Man, you got some peace and serenity going on there."
And I was like, "Yeah, I do!"
And he said, "You do or God did?"
And then boom! it kind of hit me.
He goes, "Because I saw you when you came in. I know what you looked like when you came in. And that ain't you."
And I was like, "Holy shit, he's right..." You know? Something did this. I didn't do this. Because of me, the evidence is on the wall. Is in the manila folders. It had to be God... it had to be.
      And that's when I came to believe in a Power greater than myself. That's when I started to realize that God did this. God had removed this obsession. I think the whole time I was walking through the forest, God was trapped in that plexiglass container that I had him in. He was just beatin' on the wall, "Hey! I'm over here! I'm over here! Wake up, motherfucker! Wake up!" And I never did. I never did until I came in here.

Danielle
      My life's been a journey on this Higher Power thing. I was raised Catholic, you know, went to Catholic school and just figured everybody's going to Hell. I think that's all I ever heard in church was, "We're all going to Hell," so I believed that. Then when my parents got away from the church, we stopped going and I just stopped doing any kind of religion. Faith of any kind.
      So when I first got in The Program when I was 22 I was so lost... I mean, I was grateful. I was super open-minded and willing to believe what ya'll told me. I could have this God of my own understanding and I was like, "Yeah! I love it!" And I got real gung-ho for A.A. I got the A.A. tattoo. I was like, "Woo! This is so awesome!" you know? And that went on for a few years. And I was super involved. Then I got my life. My self-will kicked in.
      Slowly but surely, the change from relying on my god to being like, "Well he's there... I still believe in him. But I'm doing a really great job right now and don't really need his help." And then that's where my life fully shifted into self-sufficiency and self-will and what I wanted and what I was doing. And, you know, it worked for me for a period of time. It did. All these things happened; I just felt like God wasn't really part of it. Just look at what Danielle was doing.
      I like what the reading talks about because, like the first part of it says, the obsession to drink had been removed. I did not think about drinking. I went almost 11 years without taking a drink and it was gone. That wasn't how I lived my life anymore. But then, when it came down to it, when this cunning, baffling, powerful disease showed up, I didn't have any leg to stand on. There was nothing between me and that first drink. Because I turned away from God and I didn't need him anymore. Sure enough, when that moment came, I picked up the drink.
      So I know today that I will forget. I have to keep coming here. I have to keep doing this work. Because my mind wants to tell me that I'm good on my own. I've got this deal. If I don't keep being reminded, I will always default back to Self-Sufficient Danielle, here she goes running on self-will, let's just make some stuff happen. And I'll run myself into the ground. And I can't do that again. I barely made it back in here this time and I don't want to live like that, you know? My will doesn't work out and if I let things go, things are always better but like I said, my default mode is Danielle's will.
      I have a Higher Power in my life today but it's been a lot more challenging this time because I'm the one that tried the way of faith and lost it. It's been a struggle to really develop that relationship. I cannot deny that my god has worked in my life. I can't. And even the time I turned away from him, I can still look back and see how he was working the whole time. And I'm grateful for that because I wouldn't have the life I have today if it wasn't for that. And I believe my Higher Power led me here to this room and helped save my life.

David
      I wasn't raised around God or in church or anything. I really came to believe in a Higher Power of God in this Program. I've seen the evidence of it... working in my life and working in other people's lives. I see God on The Walton's and Little House on the Prairie and stuff like that when I was a kid and that's basically what I knew about God. Some preacher standing in the middle of the river talking about, "Everybody's going to Hell." I knew that part of it—the going-to-Hell part—I heard that enough just being a little bit older than a toddler trying to dig to Hell, you know? I'm gonna dig to Hell and find out where Hell was.
      But this Program says I need to have a Higher Power and pray to a Higher Power. You know, I did some praying in the penitentiary back in 2005 and they were just some basic prayers.
"Let this shit end."
"Let me go somewhere."
"Let me have a life."
"Let me really try."
"Let me do something."
      I got sent here to Abilene and I went to work. This place I started out at wanted me to go to Life Group church and parole wanted me to go to A.A. or N.A. and I'd always been good at manipulatin' shit so I got to the Life Group for church. I didn't have to go to N.A. or A.A. I did well for several years and then I thought I could ease back into my other easy comfort areas. And I remember them prayers, you know... them prayers stand out in my mind 'cause I never really prayed before. And them prayers all came true. Real quickly. And real out-of-the-blue. I got to start a life here. I got basically everything that I had prayed for.
      So when I came into The Program about seven years ago, I'd been sober for four years. I just did what everyone told me to do. They told me I needed to pray, told me I needed to do this. The incremental amounts of something that I do in this program or around this program or outside of this program today are things I didn't use to do. Just that evidence of me being free and not having the problems I used to have and all that gone away by this program and by praying, then I truly believe in God. And I get to see it in other people that come in and start their recovery and struggle through their recovery and come up. That's how I see it.

Maria
      When I first got sober, I'd read The Steps on the wall at my old home group, and I remember reading that "would restore us to sanity." So I would always think, "Well, was I really crazy? Did I do crazy stuff?" And I came to the conclusion that yes. 'Cause who goes and sells a car to a junkyard and then walks home? That's insane. That's crazy right there. So yeah... I was a bit crazy.
      At any rate, it tells me: surrender, hope, and willingness. I have to have willingness to do something. Something has to break if I want to change my life. You know I can't expect to walk in here and let you all change my life for me. There's work to be done. This is presented to us... God make that covenant with me when I got sober that day November 2006. He said, "If you get sober, I'm going to give you a life beyond your dreams." And he's given it to me. I can't say he hasn't.
      Because I was raised Catholic, too. I was raised, "You're going to  Hell. And you're gonna go to Hell. And everything you do is gonna take you to Hell." And I said, "Let's go. Let's go with guns blazing. 'Cause if I go down, I'ma go... go down or go home. What's it gonna be?" I always thought that.
      I came in with a conception of a god that I used to know. But, see, sometimes it's better to come in with a conception of no god. I already had that mold. I already had that profile of the god that I knew. So when I got here, I had to change that. 'Cause it was never God that let me down; it was me that let God down. See, that's where I look at the insanity part. I was so crazy all this time thinking that I was controlling my life and that I was keeping myself out of situations. No, God kept me out of situations. Because I should be in prison (real women's prison). God saved me from that insanity; he let me go to another insanity so that I could figure out that it was him that was in control. It took me a long time... took me three years in recovery to do that. 'Cause I didn't come in like, "Oh, I'm gonna surrender!" Fuck, I wasn't going to surrender everything. I'll give you something that I can't handle but I can take care of the rest. I don't need you for all that. No. I can't handle nothing.
      It's just the miracle of allowing yourself to let that go. And sometimes our pride and ego will not let that go, so we stay sick. Some of us sicker than others. Sometimes I can be real fuckin' sick. I like to keep my circus at home, though. I don't like to take it out on the road. I really don't like everybody seeing all my insanity. I'll call my sponsor for that! Or she calls me and says, "What's going on??"
      I love this program. A.A. is my first love. God and A.A. is my first love. I love my husband and I love my children but if I didn't love God and I didn't love The Program I wouldn't have a husband and children.

Josh
      As far as the god of my understanding part, that works for me because the concept I had of a god wasn't equalling up to what was being presented to me at the time... before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And understanding how Alcoholics Anonymous works for me in the rooms is being able to see eye-to-eye with a person that has the same issues that I have because it's been too many times that I've sat with a person that can go into a bar, sit down and have a drink, and then leave, and have a regular life afterwards. I don't understand how they can do that. They're like superhumans to me.
      From the same side, if you turn the fold in, they can't understand how you can be so addicted to a substance that it can ruin your life. "You're choosing this over me!??" They just don't understand. And having to get into a conflict with them, it just... it can tear your soul up. So coming into a room with individuals that know and get what's going on to where you can vent and feel 100% understood with what you're going through, it really plays a big part in feeding your soul and feeding your spirit.
So yeah...
These rooms really do work.