Restoring Some Sanity
It may sound crazy, but recovering from loss, failure, or addiction first requires admitting to a bit of insanity.
In step one of twelve step recovery I admitted life had become unmanageable and that my best efforts resulted in falling to the bottom of a hole I couldn’t climb back out of. This means I have to admit that my thinking is not always my best friend, which means that if I can be restored to sanity it will have to come about in a way that doesn’t require me to think my way out, at least by myself.
What’s so funny about step two is it seems to be offering me a choice between two nutty options.
Do I want to remain in the mess my best thinking has achieved or do I want to connect with someone I can’t see or touch? It seems insane to believe in an invisible God.
But there are work-arounds to feeling forced to believe something injurious. That’s right, many have been burned by religion and religious people to the point where the idea of having to believe in God is repulsive.
So what to do?
The offer of WE is to just come with us. Believe that the group can be your guide to meeting the God you never knew; that the one who restored us to sanity will do the same for you. Remember, that’s why you came to a recovery meeting in the first place. You hoped to find a way out of the mess for you as well.
All you have to do is choose to keep coming back.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20 (ESV)
Step Two
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon