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The Second Step – “Came to Believe that a Power Greater than Ourselves Could Restore us to Sanity”
Posted on January 21, 2026, tagged as Addiction Recovery, Alcoholism, Twelve Steps, second step
The second step is, not surprisingly, the step one takes after the first step. If you remember, the first step is the one where people admit they are powerless over their addiction. The second step is coming to believe that despite one’s powerlessness, there is a solution, or rather, a power source that can produce a solution. Although I don’t hear people talk about this, it was my experience that before I could admit to my own total defeat in my situation, I had to believe that there was a solution, one that I had been unaware of up to that point. So, for me, and I suppose for others, I had to take the second step first and then, the first step second.
Many people walking or zooming into twelve-step recovery groups are at first struck by how positive and normal the people at the meeting seem to be, for the most part. They speak about how much better their lives are, and that they have been relieved of their compulsions. They do not show any evidence of white-knuckled sobriety. For the first time the newcomers see a glimmer of a way out of their seemingly hopeless situation. As time goes on, and they continue with the program, they really do “come to believe” that they can stay sober, and they do so, one day at a time. And they believe that they have found a new source of strength that made it possible.
Regarding the power greater than themselves, they are relieved to know that they can use their own idea of a higher power. This works even if they don’t have much of an idea of who or what their higher power is. They might be clear about what it is not, though, especially if their prior experiences with a religion have been traumatic or disillusioning. They are told all they must do is to be willing to believe in a higher power. Very few people are too stubborn to be willing to believe in such a proposition. What helps is their clarity that they don’t have the power themselves. As it says on page 45 of the Big Book, “Lack of power, that was our dilemma.”
I was at a “Joe and Charley” weekend workshop fifteen or twenty years ago. Joe O. and Charley P. put together a Big Book study and took it on the road. The tapes of these seminars are available through Alcoholic Anonymous resources. At one point, on Saturday afternoon a thunderstorm rolled through, there was a loud boom, and the lights went out. Charley immediately piped up, “Lack of power, that was our dilemma.” I love to tell this story. There is an underlying point here, which is also made in the Big Book. It’s that we all believe in the power of electricity even if we don’t understand how it works. What I do understand about electricity is my responsibility to pay the light bill to keep the lights on.
So, it follows that we have a limited but vital part to play in step two, namely, we must seek a higher power with an open mind. By admitting to ourselves that we have made a mess out of our lives helps us to admit that we’re probably not the smartest ones in the room. By coming all the way into AA or another twelve-step group, and sitting all the way down, ears and eyes wide open, we put ourselves in a prime position to find a source of power we never would have found on our own.