Step Two

Step 2:  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I took my second step towards recovery at the same meeting I took my first step.  This meeting is what I refer to as my “first” meeting because, despite the previous meetings I attended, this meeting was the first meeting that I actually listened to what was being said.  I didn’t realize I was working the steps of Al-Anon at the time, but the words that came out of my mouth might as well have come directly from an Al-Anon book.

At that “first” meeting I began to tell my story.  It didn’t come out all at once, but it came out in bits and pieces and for the first time in over 10 years I shed some tears.  I spoke a little about my husband’s alcoholism, but mostly I spoke of what I had become, what the alcohol had done to me.  I spoke of my behavior during his alcoholism.  I spoke of my obsessive nature to control all that he did and said.  I spoke about my embarrassment that he drank to excess and that all my family knew it.  “He’s a great guy,” they’d all say, “but he really needs to slow down on his drinking don’t you think?”  I never defended his drinking.  I never made excuses for his drinking when they would mention it but my husband would certainly hear about it when they were gone.  After awhile, I was the one who would bring up his drinking.  “Where is your husband” they’d ask.  “Oh, he’s drunk and in bed already,” would be my reply.  I admitted this to close family, but at work my secret was still hidden.

The things that I did would rival any psychotic person on the street.  I’d hunt for his hidden bottles of liquor and “pose” them around him when he slept and take pictures with my digital camera so I could show him in the morning that “I knew” about his drinking; that he didn’t have a secret.  I’d call him from work and be able to tell immediately that he was drunk and I would instantaneously become belligerent and felt it was my “obligation” to tell him how much his drinking sickened me.  I began to work long hours and to take my work home with me so that I didn’t have to deal with looking at him even if he was sober.  I didn’t like being around him, I didn’t want to be around him, but I didn’t want to leave because it was my sworn duty to make his life a living hell just as he was making mine a living hell.  I was miserable and darn it, so was he going to be miserable.  Every waking moment I was controlled by alcohol. 

My sickness began, before I knew it, to spill over into my other personal relationships.  I was busy controlling everybody else’s lives; telling them what to do and what not to do and it worked for a long time until I realize that I had absolutely no control over the one life I needed to have control over – that life was mine.

At that “first” meeting as the tears were flowing down my face I said out loud, in a voice that was almost not mine:  “I think I’m losing my mind.  My head is spinning.  What I’ve been doing up until this point has been useless I need some help.  I need someone who is much stronger than I am.  I am tired.”

A wise woman at this meeting said softly, barely above a whisper, “You have just taken your first two steps.”  That’s all she said.  I didn’t know what she meant at the time and I was too embarrassed to ask.  I just let it drop and so did she. 

After the meeting they said a little prayer, “When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help; let the hand of Al-Anon always be there…and let it begin with me.”  I read it from the signs on the tables, the rest of the people at the meeting knew it by heart.  As the literature and the meeting stuff was being put away, the wise woman approached me and said, “We ask that you attend 6 meetings, if after those 6 meetings you find that Al-Anon has not helped you, we will gladly refund your misery.”

When I came home from the meeting I told my husband what had happened.  He was pleased and I was more than a little confused.  I wondered why I had cried, why I had spilled my guts about MY faults and behavior and I didn’t know if I wanted to go back, but at the same time knew that I would.  My husband mentioned that I needed a sponsor to help me work the steps and I told him no.  “I am not sick, you are.  I don’t need a sponsor, I just need to talk about what is inside my head for a while.  I need to get some things out and then I’ll be done going to Al-Anon.  He didn’t push and let the conversation drop.

I felt exhausted after the meeting and propped my feet up on the coach and closed my eyes and began to think.  “My life is unmanageable and I need restored to sanity.”  Hmmm, I thought; if I needed to be restored to sanity that meant that I was insane.  Nawww, couldn’t be.  I was the pillar of strength and stability.  I was the one who everybody came to ask questions, get advice, and generally have me tell them the right road to travel.  Nobody asks an insane person questions.  I thought a lot about that “unmanageable and sanity” thing as my eyes were closed and began to recall certain events in my life that I did to or because of the alcoholic that were most definitely INSANE. 

Ok, I was insane and I knew I was going to get better; but this sponsorship thing my husband spoke of was definitely out of the question.