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STEP TWO

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

“Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it,” says the essay on Step Two in the “Twelve and Twelve.” “Yet no alcoholic, soberly analyzing his destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining-room furniture or on his own moral fiber, can claim ‘soundness of mind’ for himself.”

“I was a little surprised that my dictionary defined (sanity) as the quality of being sound of mind, sound of judgment, reasonable and rational in one's thoughts,” an AA wrote in a 1982 Grapevine story. “As I sat there mulling over the definition, an idea occurred to me: ‘This is what I'm to be restored to—sound, reasonable, rational thinking.’”

AAs writing about Step Two in the pages of Grapevine have often mentioned similar revelations—of how insane they were while drinking and of being restored to sanity through the working of the remaining Steps of the program.

Still others focus on the first part of the Step—about coming to grips with the idea of “a Power greater than ourselves.”

It is not a requirement of membership that we believe anything, the “Twelve and Twelve” assures us. “All you really need is a truly open mind.” And members can make AA itself their Higher Power, the book goes on to suggest.

Any AA—believer, atheist or agnostic—can take this Step, as the following stories reveal. “The hoop you have to jump through is a lot wider than you think.”