Step one seems easy for me now. Powerless and unmanageable are obvious in my life alcohol has kicked my butt. Step two seemed an easy quick duh step, but the longer I'm sober the more my insanity hits me. Daily I'm realizing how insaine I've been. Even perceptions from the day before are clearing up and moving into the insaine alchoholic category. My question is if step two is still revealing itself in my life. My higher power is still revealing it's self to me, can I do step 3? I say the 3rd step prayer every morning and sometimess through out the day. I try to turn my will over to my HP but is that diffrent from just being beat down to nothing because of my disease? Is letting go because you have nothing left to hold on to step 3?
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We all drank and know how to do that. It's living sober that I am learning about.
Step one seems easy for me now. Powerless and unmanageable are obvious in my life alcohol has kicked my butt. Step two seemed an easy quick duh step, but the longer I'm sober the more my insanity hits me. Daily I'm realizing how insaine I've been. Even perceptions from the day before are clearing up and moving into the insaine alchoholic category. My question is if step two is still revealing itself in my life. My higher power is still revealing it's self to me, can I do step 3? I say the 3rd step prayer every morning and sometimess through out the day. I try to turn my will over to my HP but is that diffrent from just being beat down to nothing because of my disease? Is letting go because you have nothing left to hold on to step 3?
You summed it up quite well!
our best efforts got all where we are. We need a new boss!
best wishes in your quest for sling term sobriety.
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"I spent a lifetime in hell and it only took me twelve steps to get to heaven."
"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you."
I would suggest reading the BB starting on pg 60. start with the ABC,s.
8 years in and my HP is still revealing himself to me. that will continue. I don't understand nor fully comprehend Him, for to fully understand and comprehend Him would mean im equal to Him.
I did that before. it didn't work.
Step one is the only Step you need to get and do perfectly. Without complete surrender on my part there was no lasting sobriety. All reservations need to be eliminated. The other 11 will work despite yourself. Progress will be had by continuous effort and action on your part.
Step two states: Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. It doesn't say have to believe or did believe. This is a process step. For me the longer I stayed sober and worked The Program and saw my life changing, the more this step meant to me. I had to believe to see, now I see to believe. The BB states p47: 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. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. There has been many times in my recovery that I'll have difficulties and need to come back to this Step. I forget that I can't restore myself to sanity. I tried that and it got me here. I must turn to God in all things.
I love your quote, "but the longer I'm sober the more my insanity hits me". To me, that's the biggest part of Alcoholism. You take my solution to my problems away and I'm left with just my problems. ME. That's why this is more of a thinking problem than a drinking problem. Check this out, I saved it from an oldtimer that used to frequent this forum:
Alcohol(ISM) does that to make me drink- the thinking problem.
Hard to explain, but alcoholism isn't what happens when you drink per se, it's an inability to handle life without drinking, my alcohol(ISM) will give me panic attacks (because it knows I drink to "chill out") it will give me unbearable stress (because it knows I drink to "chill out"), it will make me homicidal and suicidal (because it knows I drink to "chill out").
I don't drink always necessarily because I like to drink (although I love it), I drank because I had the symptoms only a drink will "cure".
Symptoms- causes and conditions: FEAR, doubt & insecurity.Jealousy, Envy, Self-loathing, Control, boredom, playing God, irritable, restless & discontented.The disease will use these any time it can to gain leverage and bring me toward a drink.
Welcome to the world of your mind lying to you and doing whatever it can to make you feel that you -need- a drink, that's called -untreated alcoholism-.
Drinking was never our problem, although there came a day when we thought it was, drinking was our answer, and one day it turned on us and became "the problem" but it was never the problem in the first place, but it takes a few days of trying to live without drinking to begin to figure that out, we don't have a "drinking problem" we have a "living problem" and drinking becomes our answer until it stops working and begins to create more problems than it "cures, then we are well and truly screwed, because not only do we have a living problem we have a drinking problem on top of it.
Lack of power is my problem. Gaining power is the solution. How do I do that-
Step 3 for me is all about turning to the source of power. Power which I don't have on my own. The power which can guide me through life so I can live life on life's terms. Turned my will(thoughts/desires) and my life(actions) over to God as we understood him. It's what The Program boils down to for me. BB P 60: The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.
Thank you Mike!!!! Thank you everyone. I always thought step one and two were solid and you did them then moved on. I didn't think step two was one of the constant ongoing ones. I thought sobriety..... sanity.....then give up alcoholic self.......... then a bunch of list...... then appologies..... then more list........then stop being an asshole.......then daily list, my 12 step perception in a nut shell. Now I'm doing them and it's not what I thought.
Doing step one and two are changing me and step three is saving me from me. Thank you again. I can keep doing step two and don't have to "complete" it to move on.
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We all drank and know how to do that. It's living sober that I am learning about.
In my experience steps 1 2 3 were simpler than expected but did not bring any God awareness on their own. This is hardly surprising as a relationship with the God of my understanding is promised as the result of all the steps, not the first three. The first three steps can be done in about an hour if you wish. One way of looking at them is;
Step one identifies the problem. I am powerless over alcohol, my life has become unmanageable, and I will never be able to drink like other people.
Step two looks at the solution. I take a look at all human remedies that have been tried so far and have not worked. Is there another human aid I want to try or am I willing to look at a spiritual solution now? I see these AA people got sober with the help of a higher power. So am I willing to believe that this same power might possibly work for me?
Step 3 is a simple decision. Being convinced of the first two are we now going to turn to this higher power and do what is necessary to have a spiritual experience.
There you have it. Problem, solution, decision, which aren't worth a pinch of watsit without ACTION.
The action of step 3 is step 4 The book tells us that the first three steps will have little lasting effect unless followed at once by strenuous action.
I began to get my first conscious feeling for a higher power after step 5. By this time I had removed some very big blocks and my step 3 decision was starting to bear fruit. Steps 4 and 5 took two days with the help of a good sponsor.
Many people make the mistake of thinking they must have conscious contact with the God of their understanding before moving on with the program( from step 3). This just isn't so. Some may get this feeling, as the book says, but the rest of us have to do a lot more work on developing the steps as a way of life, before the Power begins to flow.
God bless MikeH.
-- Edited by Fyne Spirit on Sunday 29th of December 2013 02:11:17 PM
Wow - these are really helpful posts for me. In and out of the rooms for 6 years and now, finally, feeling a level of committment I haven't been able to cultivate before -- possible now almost completely due to my willingness to get to meetings every day and reach out and communicate with my fellows. Overcoming the problem of isolation by communing with others. Thanks much for these posts!
