12 Steps to SerenitySýnishorn

STEP 2

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Addiction and codependency are often defined as an unhealthy reliance on the control of exterior things in order to fill interior needs. Scripture cautions against this manipulation of the material and physical realms, the flesh, as a means of satisfying our deepest spiritual and emotional hungers. The belief that these hungers can be addressed on a physical, material, or financial level alone is its own special form of insanity.

Step 2 promises that we shall be restored to sanity as we turn away from codependent engagement with the flesh and turn toward the revitalizing life source of the Spirit. Indeed, we shall experience nothing less than a rebirth.

Our recovery literature describes this rebirth and infilling of the Holy Spirit in the following way: “As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn”

(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63).