This is an excerpt from my newest book, Buddhism & The Twelve Steps: A Workbook for Individuals and Groups. Available on CreateSpace or Amazon.
What’s Step Two About?
When I first read the 12 Steps I thought Step Two was
saying, “If you just believe that God will fix you, the power of your faith
will take care of everything.” This was a very Christian reading of the Step,
which might very well have been its original meaning. I was willing to suspend
disbelief and skepticism and play along—“God? Sure, why not?” That worked for a
while. I kept doing the grunt work of recovery, everything from showing up at
meetings, being of service, and writing inventory to getting a day job, going
back to school, and starting to deal with my relationship issues. There was a
feeling of magic that everything seemed to be falling into place, all those
little “God shots” and synchronous moments. People kept showing up just when I
needed them—teachers, employers, friends—and it all seemed to be happening
because I “Let Go and Let God.”
That’s
one way of looking at it. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that way of
looking at it. Maybe. . .
Today
I see Step Two in completely different terms. First of all, the way I
understand it now is that the Step is saying, “There is hope. It is possible to
change. Things can get better.” The reason that statement is important is that
when you’re an addict, you don’t think you can change. In fact, that’s the
whole point—you want to stay loaded all the time—you don’t want to change. One
of the reasons it’s so hard to take Step One, to actually quit drinking and
using, is that the question that looms in the background is, “What then?” How
are you going to deal with not drinking? We have the sense that our life is
going to be the same, only worse because we won’t have the relief of getting
high. Why would we choose that? The whole reason we are getting loaded all the
time is that we don’t want to be in our life as it is. Step Two is offering us
an alternative; it’s saying that there’s a completely different life out there for
us.
Okay,
but the Step says “a Power greater than ourselves.” Just believing that it’s
possible to change and for your life to get better doesn’t seem to involve some
big power. But, if we think about it, for anything to happen, some power or
force or energy has to be involved. To get out of bed, a lot of muscles have to
be involved. To take a midterm exam, a lot of study and thinking have to be in
play. Nothing happens without power. And the power of intentional change is the
power of karma. Actions have results; that’s what the Law of Karma says. Drink
and use all the time, and the result is addiction. Stop drinking and using and
the result is being clean and sober. When we take Step One and stop, that’s
essentially what we’re doing, using the Law of Karma to establish ourselves in
recovery.
If
we don’t believe we can change, if we think we are bound to stay addicts
forever and that we can’t heal, then we don’t believe in the Law of Karma. We
are saying, “No matter what actions I take, I am fated to be a suffering
addict.” From a Buddhist viewpoint, this is called “delusion,” or Wrong View.
It means that we don’t understand the way the world works. We believe in fate,
that everything is preordained and we have no power to do anything about it. Nonetheless, most of us, when faced
with the question, “Do my actions have any effect on my life,” will say, “Yes,
of course.” The Buddha said that if our actions didn’t bring results, he
wouldn’t bother teaching people because there would be no way for them to
achieve enlightenment; they wouldn’t be capable of change.
But
this belief that we can’t change is implied in the despair of the addict who
can’t seem to stay sober or feels stuck in negative emotional or behavioral
patterns. That’s why it’s important to take Step Two, to confront this, often
unacknowledged, belief consciously and see how we are being held back by our
delusion. Once acknowledged, we can begin to consciously build a belief system.
We can start to ask ourselves, “What do I need to do to change and grow?” Then
we can begin to access the powers at our disposal, powers like love,
determination, awareness, wisdom, the support of others, and, yes, faith.
Whether we know it or not, as addicts we’ve been using powers, but mostly
negative ones like selfishness, impatience, fear, and resentment. Recovery
means working with the positive powers. The faith or belief involved in Step
Two is when we “come to believe” that it’s actually worth changing our behavior
and orientation. Once we believe that change is possible and that it’s worth
making the commitment to a new way of living, we are ready for Step Three.
If you have struggled with whether you want to go into a
12 Step program; with the idea of God; with “those people” in meetings; with
your own ability to succeed in recovery, what if you just stop fighting? What
if you put this all aside, and any other objections or resistance and just
surrendered to the process?
Consider
any ways you have been resisting the recovery process, whether they are about
the program or about you or your beliefs, and ask yourself if it might be
possible to simply drop that resistance, if only for today. Question yourself
and your beliefs. Don’t believe everything you think.
