Step 2: The glue that holds my recovery together

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.

We've been studying Step 2 this month at my Debtors Anonymous meetings. Three things stand out for me in Step Two of D.A.'s Twelve Steps. 

First, thanks to A.A., this is a gentle program. Everything in the program is a suggestion. There are no rules. The only "rule" is that I don't incur unsecured debt, one day at a time. That's kind of like the rule that suggests you put on a parachute before you jump out of an airplane. It's a suggestion that could save your life. I want to live, so I don't debt. 

Second, I don't have to believe in a higher power all at once, like turning on a light switch. It's okay to sneak up on god as I understand it. It's okay to gradually realize that a higher power has been with me all along. It's okay to change my conception of a higher power as I learn and grow. It's okay to wake up some days and refuse to believe (although from my experience, that usually leads to a day fraught with self-centered fear). I have the choice, though. Any higher power that is not another human will work, as long as it has the power to do for me what I cannot: remove the obsession to debt.

Third, all I need is an open mind. That's what the authors of A.A.'s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions wrote many years ago. I've come to believe having an open mind is good advice. That means, I try not to condemn new ideas before I've had a chance to do some research and think about them. I do my best to see it from the viewpoint of others who believe the idea. Then I decide if the idea has merit, if I should oppose it, or if it is not my business or concern (most ideas fall into this category). 

More to be revealed!

Yours in recovery,
Hope

=============================================================

"Hope Newlyfound" is an alias for an anonymous member of the program of Debtors Anonymous with twenty years of freedom from incurring unsecured debt (which means no credit cards, credit lines, bouncing checks, paying bills late, and borrowing from friends and family.)

Information about D.A. can be found at the Debtors Anonymous world service website, and locally in the Pacific Northwest at the Oregon intergroup website and the Seattle/Puget sound intergroup website. 

Step 2: God (whatever god is) can restore me to sanity! What's the catch?

Step Two was the hardest step for me, because I don't like the word god much. I prefer the term higher power, but I use the word god sometimes, because it is short and easy. (I apparently resist capitalizing it.) I sometimes regret saying god at meetings, though, when I remember how hard it was for me to hear that word at meetings. 

I don't know what god is, or even if god exists. I'm human; I believe that kind of knowledge is beyond me. That used to bother me a lot, that I didn't know. As a newcomer, I wanted certainty, because I was terrified. After admitting my powerlessness over debt, I was in free fall. A belief in a power greater than myself was essential to my survival, yet I could not easily believe in something I couldn't see or feel.

I wrestled with my conception of god for months. And in that process, I came to believe... in something. 

I also came to realize that it didn't matter what god was, or even if god existed. It only mattered that each day I became willing to believe. The grace, I found, was in the asking, rather than in the knowing. This realization has brought me a lot of relief.

Keep coming back.

—Hope

Compulsive debtor

=============================================================

"Hope Newlyfound" is an alias for an anonymous member of the program of Debtors Anonymous with twenty years of freedom from incurring unsecured debt (which means no credit cards, credit lines, bouncing checks, paying bills late, and borrowing from friends and family.)

Information about D.A. can be found at the Debtors Anonymous world service website, and locally in the Pacific Northwest at the Oregon intergroup website and the Seattle/Puget sound intergroup website. 

Step One: I got the message

At last week's D.A. meeting we focused for the last time this month on Step One. We read from the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous (I am waiting with anticipation for the upcoming celebration when D.A. publishes its own Twelve Step book). I go to two Step Study D.A. meetings a week, so you can imagine I am stewing up to my eyeballs in Step One. However, I did my best to glean something new.

I wrote a list of the the words that could be considered "negative," and the words that could be considered "positive." Here's my list, in no particular order:

Negative words

1. defeat
2. personal powerlessness
3. destruction
4. bankruptcy
5. rapacious creditor
6. stark
7. revolted
8. weakness
9. humiliation
10. mental obsession
11. allergy
12. condemned
13. single-handed combat
14. last gasp
15. drowning
16. low-bottom
17. hopelessness
18. fatal progression
19. out of control
20. literal hell
21. unmanageable
22. warped mind
23. the lash of alcohol (or debt)
24. self-centered
25. malady
26. extreme difficulties
27. merciless obsession
28. fatal nature
29. dying

Positive words

1. liberation
2. strength
3. enduring strength
4. taproot
5. open minded
6. conviction
7. willingness to listen
8. act of Providence
9. firm bedrock
10. happy purposeful lives

After seeing my list (29 negative words, 10 positive words) I think what I can conclude is that the writers of the A.A. Twelve and Twelve really wanted to make it clear that the disease of alcoholism can kill people. I translate that in my mind to apply to debting. Incurring debt can kill me. Maybe quickly, maybe slowly, but the fatal progression of the disease means there is no cure.

Step One requires that I admit complete and utter defeat over my delusion of control over debt. Until I admit my powerlessness over debt, I cannot begin the road to recovery.

On to Step Two!

Yours
—Hope

=============================================================

"Hope Newlyfound" is an alias for an anonymous member of the program of Debtors Anonymous with twenty years of freedom from incurring unsecured debt (which means no credit cards, credit lines, bouncing checks, paying bills late, and borrowing from friends and family.)

Information about D.A. can be found at the Debtors Anonymous world service website, and locally in the Pacific Northwest at the Oregon intergroup website and the Seattle/Puget sound intergroup website.