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

All the steps are listed on pages 59 & 60, but this is where the instructions for this step can be found in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA, p. 8, paragraph 3, lines 2-3

Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink.


AA, p. 11, paragraph 3

But my friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was about to lock him up. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!


AA, p. 12, paragraph 3

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?"

That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last.

It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.


AA, p. 12, last paragraph into page 13

For a brief moment, I had needed and wanted God. There had been a humble willingness to have Him with me - and He came. But soon the sense of His presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. And so it had been ever since. How blind I had been.

At the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Treatment seemed wise, for I showed signs of delirium tremens.

There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.


AA, p. 13, last paragraph into page 14

My friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirements.

Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness.


AA, p. 20, middle of 2nd paragraph

we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking -"What do I have to do?"

It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. We shall tell you what we have done.


AA, p. 42, paragraph 3, lines 1-2

Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems.


AA, p. 47, paragraph 2

We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself? As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way.


AA, p. 56 & 57 Short Story

One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friends gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: If there is a God, He certainly hasnt done anything for me! But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong? While pondering the answer he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else:

Who are you to say there is no God?

This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.

Thus was our friends cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared. Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.

What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his Maker— then he knew.

Even so has God restored us all to our right minds. To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. But He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.

When we drew near to Him He disclosed Himself to us!


Questions!

Do you want to drink?

When was the last time you wanted to drink?

When did you feel like not wanting to drink?


AA, p. 58 Chapter 5 How It Works - Original Manuscript (1938)

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AA, p. 64, paragraph 3, lines 5-6

When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.



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