a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
Do you see the word IN -- in Step 2, above?
It isn't there. So, why the big emphasis that we always hear about in regards to Step 2, and coming to believe "in" a Power greater than ourselves?
I believe that it's one of the typical alcoholic's distractions -- to change the subject -- of any sentence or conversation -- that they don't want to deal with. If you don't want to face something -- just change the subject of what you're facing. Right?
If we look at Step 1, it's easy to conclude that the subject of the sentence of Step 1, is: Powerless.
If we carefully look at Step 2, the subject of the sentence in Step 2, is not Power -- the subject is: Sanity.
When you put Step 1 and Step 2, together the following questions produce their own answers:
In Step 1, "why are we Powerless" over alcohol? The answer is in Step 2: we're insane -- in regards to alcohol. This is why the Big Book indicates that "the problem" -- "centers in the mind."
If you get "restored to sanity" -- the "drink obsession" get's removed. You begin to act sanely and normally. If you think of taking a drink -- you have an automatic response -- that the book calls "For by this time sanity will have returned.
We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame." (Step 10).
So, The evidence of a Spiritual Awakening is: SANITY. Without sanity --there is no evidence that a Spiritual Awakening has taken place.
It's ironic, that in Step 2, so much emphasis is placed on coming to believe IN a "Power greater than ourselves" -- when the suggested emphasis is not "IN" a Power -- The emphasis is "THAT" a Power -- could restore them to sanity. What good is it to have an Spiritual AWAKENING -- if we don't have SANITY?
Bill Wilson, wrote: "To get over drinking will require a transformation of thought and attitude. We all had to place recovery above everything, for without recovery we would have lost both home and business." ~page 143, Alcoholics Anonymous.
A Spiritual Awakening (Step 12) is a Transformed Personality.
A working definition of the Twelve Steps "Spiritual Awakening" could easily be: a transformed personality that has been changed and restored to a sane healthy personality, as a result of taking a prescribed course of actions -- that has produced an acute sense of purpose and a consciousness of the Power of God, as the individual understands God, working in the individual's life, which provides a sufficient inner-resource to support -- to maintain continued recovery. (See: page 569, 3rd Edition of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, or pg 567, in the 4th Edition, for the AA explanation of Spiritual Awakening).
Dallas B.