“Step Two: Hope”

(This blog is second in a multi-part series, “Thoughts On The Steps”. This series is not a guide on how to work steps; steps can only be worked under the guidance of a sponsor. The twelve-step program is a spiritual program; it teaches us how to live a spiritual life. Working each of the steps gives us the chance to practice a spiritual principle. Whatever your particular fellowship, the Steps are the same, as are the spiritual principles behind them. These are my thoughts on the steps and on those principles.)

Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

There’s an unspoken assumption being made in this step that we did something in Step One--admitted we were insane. After all, why would we need to be restored to sanity if we weren’t? This is a bit of a touchy subject. The word ‘insane’ conjures up images of stark-raving lunatics, psychotic killers, and emotionally unstable parents who murder their children in their sleep. I myself tend to think of Glenn Close in ‘Fatal Attraction’.

Mental instability is not the kind of insanity we’re talking about, here. Think of that as ‘Insanity’ with a capital ‘I’. For us, the insanity (with a lower-case ‘i’) is more a realization that the way we have been living is insane. Our thinking, the ways we behave, this is where our insanity lay. And we know, deep inside, that we can’t go on doing life the same way we have been. Something’s gotta give. We have to change, find a way to do things differently. We can’t go on the way we have been going.

If we’ve honestly admitted to ourselves that we can’t control other people, places and things, then isn’t it insane to continue to try to do so? If we’ve admitted we’re powerless over our problem (whatever the problem), that we can’t solve it ourselves, then don’t we need a solution that comes from outside ourselves?

There’s a bit of humility needed to take this step. Just as in the first step, we have to make some serious admissions. We don’t have all the answers. The way we do life, in general, doesn’t work. That can mean trying to do life by being loaded all the time; it can mean trying to do life by manipulating others, or circumstances. Maybe it means we’ve exhausted ourselves from constant worry. Maybe we’ve been crushed by the realization that we aren’t all-powerful, that no matter what we do, we can’t make the world be the way we think it should.

Whatever the reasons behind it, we come to a point where we admit that the answers aren’t going to come from inside us. Our own power is not enough to deal with life. We don’t have the resources within to cope. We need a power greater than ourselves alone. That means we turn to the spiritual. Call it God, call it Great Spirit, call it what you will. It is that force that is not of the body or the mind. It is the spiritual energy that exists beyond us mere mortals.

This step talks about coming to believe. That describes a process. We come to believe in the spiritual. Then we come to believe that that force--whatever you choose to call it--can be helpful to us. We come to believe that there is another way, that there is help, that there is an answer to our struggle. When we do, we find Hope.

Hope can come to us many different ways. For some, the realization occurs within; they find Hope for themselves that their lives can get better. For others, they see how relying on the power of the spiritual has changed people’s lives and they come to believe it can work for them as well. Each person’s path is unique.

There is a difference between Hope and just wishing for something. I’ve heard it described that a wish is for something that may or may not be possible; Hope is for something that definitely is. There is an aspect to Hope that wishing doesn’t have--an element of belief. If you Hope something is true, then you have a belief (however small) that it is possible.