What Is Step 2 in Alcoholics Anonymous?
Are you ready to learn about Step 2 in Alcoholics Anonymous? Here with you, an alcoholic and a full-time YouTuber, Jerry Banfield. What is Step 2 in Alcoholics Anonymous, in my opinion and my experience, and what stories do I have related to it?
The last post about Step 1 got us ready for Step 2. At the end of Step 1, the idea is we realize we are insane — that we are consciously sabotaging our own lives, that we are wanting and craving alcohol, sober, even though we know it hurts us. We are consciously desiring something that is to our own worst interest. We realize that we must be insane to want to hurt ourselves and the people around us in this way, that we crave something that is hurting all of us. That's insanity.
Step 2 is as follows: came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. That's off the top of my head — if there's a word that's different, I trust you can read it. The idea with Step 2 is that we began to believe and came to believe that something greater than ourselves could remove this insanity from us and restore us back to sanity. We began to see in Step 2 that if this insanity would go away, maybe a happy, sober life would be possible. We saw that as long as we wanted and desired and craved a drink, life was going to be miserable, because we knew we couldn't keep drinking anymore.
Yet how are we supposed to relieve this insanity? We got to a point in Step 2 where we don't know how we can do it ourselves, so we just open up and say, look, something out there — whatever you want to call it: God, love, the universe, Alcoholics Anonymous, faith, something — there must be something that could help us get rid of this insanity. Some power out there that's greater than us is capable of getting rid of this insanity. That's where we really start working the Alcoholics Anonymous program. In Step 1, we are looking around at our lives, getting to know ourselves. Step 2 is where we start doing something new. We start opening up for a little bit of hope and belief.
How Step 2 Played Out for Me
For me, I'll tell you exactly how this played out, because I didn't stand there and say, "I'm going to do Step 2 right now." No — I'll tell you exactly how this happened. I went to Alcoholics Anonymous in April 2014, just after my father's memorial service. I was wide open, just wrecked with pain. Yet I had tried sobriety. I had found I couldn't stay sober with any consistency. I went to Alcoholics Anonymous after a desperate prayer to God, because I knew I would change my mind — that at some point, I would change my mind about sobriety. I had certainty, based on all the other times I had tried to quit drinking, that if you gave it enough time and I felt good enough and my relationship with my wife got better and my business picked up, I knew I would change my mind about sobriety. I'd say, "All right, I'm back. Let's go. We can drink again."
I knew that I didn't have any more chances left. I'd done that cycle a bunch of times: let my life break down, hit a bottom, just struggle through and stay sober. Then as soon as the struggle was over and I relaxed a little bit, I'd decide — or I'd think I'd decided — that I could have a drink again. That's insanity, to forget all that stuff. It's insane when you've had something like a bottom, whatever it is for you. For me, my bottoms often involved not wanting to live anymore, or involved crimes committed even though I didn't get caught for them, or involved losing relationships. It's insane when one day you're saying, "I'm never going to drink again," and two weeks later you're saying, "I'm going to go out to the bar with my friends."
I started off knowing I was insane. I knew I couldn't stay sober even if I wanted to, and I made a desperate prayer to God. I said, "Please, God, I'll do anything to stay sober." Thus, even before I went to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had done Steps 1 and 2. I realized that this was insane, and I said, "God, please, I'll do anything to help me stay sober." That is Step 2 in its most basic form: "God, please, I'll do anything to stay sober today."
From there, it was suggested in my mind — it felt like it came from God or from an angel, a thought that didn't feel like it was my own — and it said this: "Well, going to those AA meetings might be a part of the anything that you just offered." I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and I continued to stick with the original state of desperation that I came to AA in.
The Insanity Came Back Sober
What happened was this: as I continued to stay sober and I started to get my health back and feel better, I started to forget a bit of the pain from before, and then the desire to drink came back — and it came back as hard as it ever had. I wasn't praying to God on a daily basis. I had forgotten that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, and I had started to forget some of Step 1 — that my life had become unmanageable. I started thinking, "No, I'm sober. I got this. I can run my life. I'll go to a couple of AA meetings a week. I can run my life." Then when the desire to drink came back, I realized, "Oh my God, I'm insane. I'm insane sober. Something is really messed up in here, sober, and I clearly don't know how to fix it."
I started desperately praying to God to stay sober almost constantly. In fact, my head was so crazy it would go like this: "God, please, I want to stay sober today." One second would pass. "You know what? Maybe I can have a drink before my wife comes home from work. I think that could — God, please, like really, I do want to stay sober, but maybe I could have another drink and it'd be okay. God, please help. I'm so screwed up right now, I don't even know what to do, but a drink would probably fix it, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'd be fine if I just could go get a — no, I'm not going to get a bottle of vodka. God, please — it's been like one minute since the last prayer. Please help. Help."
What happened is I kept desperately praying to God. I literally got so afraid sometimes I'd just stand there — I wouldn't move, because I might go, "Okay, I'm safe. I don't know if I walk into my bedroom whether I'm going to then decide to go drink, or if I go to the bathroom, then I'll go drink. I'm just going to stand here right now. I'm just going to stand right in this spot. I'm safe. And I'm not going to move till I feel a little bit better." And I would. Man, it was like there were two of me.
Coming to Believe — and Getting Ready for Step 3
In continuing to pray to God, I came to believe that maybe God could actually fix this, that I might actually be able to stay sober, that maybe God could restore me to sanity. That maybe something — whatever you want to call it — whatever had created me so that I had gotten to be this way would also respond to my request to be a different way. The desperate prayers to God, followed by wanting to drink, helped me to then be ready for Step 3. Clearly, I couldn't even get out of bed and have a decent day without arguing with myself all day about whether I was going to drink or not, and being almost completely ineffective in the rest of my life. I came to believe that maybe something else — that if God can help restore me to sanity, then that kind of God might be worth doing anything for, turning my whole life over for. Not just my drink problem, but the whole rest of my life. I was willing to do whatever it takes to be restored to sanity, because being that insane is miserable.
What started to happen is I started to move into Step 3 then: "Well, God, clearly I don't know what I'm doing here at all. I'll take suggestions." To me, going from Step 2 to Step 3 is just saying, okay, clearly I don't know what I'm doing. If God can restore me to sanity, then I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. I believe that I'm able to be restored to sanity by a power greater than myself, which I do believe today. And it's nice, because this process goes faster and faster the more times we go through it.
It took me weeks of working on Step 2 — weeks of praying to God and then plotting on getting a drink, praying to God to restore me to sanity, plotting on a drink — before I got into Step 3: "Okay, God, I'll do whatever you want today. Whatever you want, I'll do it. Just help me see what it is you want, and I'll do it. I don't care about my plans. I don't care about my whole idea of my life. I'll do whatever you want, God." To me, that's how we know we've really done a good Step 2 — when we're ready to do Step 3 and say, "Okay, God, however may I help today, let me do that. Let me drop all these ideas of how I'm going to plot to get through the day. Let me be restored to sanity."
A Tool If You Struggle With the God Thing
There's a tool that can be really helpful for this if you just hate the God thing and you're atheist or agnostic. I said I was agnostic when I came into AA — but when I got in pain, I was a firm believer in God. If I felt good, then I was agnostic. What I started doing with Step 2 is that I started praying to something very specific. Praying to God over and over all day, I got to feeling a bit distant, like I was shouting up at the sky or something, not sure if my voice could get through. Fortunately for me, my dad had died. I tried to pray to Jesus, but again, Jesus didn't feel real close to me. I hadn't met Jesus. I didn't know if I really knew Jesus that well. Praying to Jesus felt about like praying to God.
I started to grab on to whoever listened, and I grabbed on to the spirit of my dead father. I said, "Look, you're dead. You don't have anything better to do than to listen to me." I had a whole relationship and 30 years of life with my father. I felt very comfortable talking to my father, and I felt that my father was really available and listening to me.
Praying to My Father Directly
Whereas I didn't feel like my voice mattered that much to Jesus, or that it mattered that much to God — you've got all these other people praying to you — I felt like my prayers mattered a lot to my father, and that my father could really be with me and help me. So I started praying to my father directly. I said, "Look, Dad, please help me stay sober today. Dad, I don't have anything else to do here and I'm struggling. And Dad, I've got to go to the liquor store right now. But maybe if you just possess my body and take it over..."
Here's the moment I'm thinking about: I was at the gym. I had spent a whole day negotiating at what point I was going to drink and whether I was going to stay sober. I negotiated that I'd just go to the personal training and then I'd stop at the liquor store on the way back — which is the way I used to go to the liquor store. And I was in the car, just a mess. I'm thinking, I have to go to the liquor store right now. I have to. So I just prayed. I'm like, "Dad, please, please. I know if you were in control of my body, or even if you were just in the car here with me, we would drive home right past the liquor store and it wouldn't be any big deal. Please help me. Please, please help me."
When I started praying to my father, that felt very real to me. That felt very strong. I knew he was listening. And I just kept praying and praying to him, asking him for help and being willing to accept any of his help.
Into Step Three: The Miracles of the Program
From there, I started getting into step three. Like, okay — I'll do whatever you want today. "Dad, show me what the right thing to do is today. Help me do the right thing today. Guide me in the right thing to do today. Help me know God's will." And from there, I started taking suggestions. That's when the miracles of the program happened in my experience. The hard work was really only in steps one and two. Once you get through and say, okay, you let go — "however may I serve today" — you let go of what you wanted to do.
That's how I'm here sharing these stories: these are things I want to remember, and I intend to remember, and I'm grateful to share them with you so that they may help you as well. If you'd like to see more of my story, check out my Life playlist, especially the Alcoholics Anonymous videos.
Thank you very much for reading this. I love you. You're awesome. And I wish you a peaceful sobriety and a happy journey into step three.