In the Big Book, it begins talking about the second step of recovery in Chapter 4, We Agnostics and finishes just after the preamble of Chapter 5 ("How It Works") -- you know, that part of Chapter 5 that we read at many meetings. Well, just after that section, there's a statement, "Being convinced, we were now at Step Three." Well, if we're at Step 3 at that point in the book, then we must have just finished Step 2.
But even before We Agnostics, I just noticed that there's some great insight into the concept of alcoholic insanity contained in More About Alcoholism, especially that first page which I call the long version of the 1st Step. I didn't really notice it before until I began finishing up working through Step 1 with several guys and I was going over that long version of the 1st Step again. I simply can't get enough of this first step.
What I noticed yesterday was that there are several references to insanity on p.30:
"No person likes to think they are bodily or mentally different from their fellows." Here Bill is laying the groundwork for his belief that there was a mental aspect of this disease and that the solution is going to have to do something in that regard if we are going to get better.
"...our drinking careers have characterized by constant vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people." The constant vain attempt to be someone that we aren't (i.e., non-alcoholics) is, I believe, alcoholic insanity. It's a layman's attempt to describe our experience as alcoholics and I can't think of a better way to describe my own experience for over 30 years of my life.... In fact, I still see traces of this insanity in my present sober life. And these traces of insanity lead to similarly "vain" attempts to be someone I'm not.
"The idea that some how, some day, he could control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker." Again, this "idea" is insane because it's based on the desire to be "who we want to be rather than who we really are". That's insane.
"The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death." Need I say more?
"The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed." Our insanity then, as it pertains to our alcoholism, is holding the false idea that we are different than we really are and ignoring all the facts to the contrary. While it's not an immoral or silly desire not to be an alcoholic, just as it's not crazy to want to avoid having cancer or a heart attack. What's crazy though, is once one "is" an alcoholic, trying to be something or someone who is not alcoholic.
My problem was not that I was an alcoholic, my problem was that I was an alcoholic trying to act, to feel and to drink "like" a non-alcoholic. That was my problem.
The 2nd Step, again: for me!, has nothing much to do with God or a higher power. It has to do with becoming aware of who I am as an alcoholic and that there's nothing wrong with that fact. For me, the higher power referred to in this step is "Truth".
Take care!
Mike L.
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Hi Mike. Greetings from Northern Virginia. Job's going well after lots of anxiety from moving. I like that you wrote about insanity and the second step and it's elision with the first step.
I always liked that "The delusion that we are like other people OR PRESENTLY MAY BE has to be smashed forever." AA is not a program that can be over and done with in a fixed time. It has to be a way of life. Never has this been more clear with me than recently.
I found myself frightened and alone with defenses high after my first two sponsors died. After countless vain attempts to try sponsorship like Goldilocks tried porridge, it took until just recently that I finally found the shoe that fit. I'll tell you what happened.
I had unrealistic expectations about the move. I was alternatively fearful about moving and yet I figured that it would only take me about a week to adjust to the move and then all would be well. I found myself telling myself that I was OK and that the meetings were enough. Deep inside I was terrified and confused -- the Four Horsemen. I think that somehow I felt that I would be able to handle this thing on my own. I could not. So I asked a man to be my sponsor.
It is sort of childish, but in the beginning, we put these kind souls, our sponsors, through these little tests, and they're make-or-break. I opened up to him expressing my discomfort and he responded with love. I think this is when I first began to trust. Once I began to trust I became willing to follow directions.
The real issue, that I thought I would be able to move across country, make friends, get a sponsor I trust, get a job (and feel comfortable in my own skin at this new job), and excel at this job, like others (and do it completely on my own) was a delusion! Only in hindsight do I see the astonishing persistence of these crazy false beliefs (delusions). And I had perfect clarity about alcoholism: It is a disease that constantly tries to convince us that we don't have it.
Then my sponsor told me that no human being in history has ever come to faith without hitting a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual bottom. This clarified things for me for the first time ever. For I knew this experience was not just unique to alcoholics, but to everyone. When our own self-reliance and self-sufficiency failed us, we had to go to a power greater than ourselves. And suddenly I thought back to all those people, whose religious rantings in meetings (and elsewhere) I condemned or scoffed at -- former friends whose faith I mocked. I realized the faultiness of my thinking; the Great Reality is that we are all one. They hit bottom just as surely as I did. Is my bottom any worse (or better) than theirs? No. And I knew I owed a great amends. For it is not possible to criticize and condemn and harbor resentment and find a connection with this Higher Power.
Now as I begin my second month here, I have more tempered expectations and greater acceptance about my reality today. The delusion that I can do things like other people (or at least in the same way as others) has to be smashed forever -- because although I am a spiritual being having a human experience, like others, I have to continually guard against my own thinking: I don't do anything normally. So for me to think that MY conception of how life is "supposed" to go, and how to conduct myself at work and at home is THE WAY, I am completely deluded.
I don't control anything; I am completely powerless. Paradoxically, it is only when I make the decision to "let go and let God" that I receive Grace -- the Gift Of Desperation transforms to the gift of sobriety and sound thinking.
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