How to deal with Steps Two and Three if you don't believe in God and had a bad religious experience in your childhood: some ideas
Religion never did anything to me
But people did
Religion is abstract
But religious people, like people, can be jerks: the ideas can be pernicious, too, but the ideas are dead in the water without the people wielding them, so we're back to the people
For now, direct the anger away from the ideas towards the people
I'll come back to that later
Simply reject any ideas that do not help, and keep them off the blank sheet of paper we're about to use
So:
Step One says: I do not, on my own, have the power to stay away from the first drink
My experience of going to meetings told me: other people, like me, did not have that power, but they have acquired that power
Quite literally, they have a acquired greater power than what they could muster on their own, or, if you will, a power greater than themselves
Now, think of that power as a commodity, like groceries
Sure, if there are groceries, there must be a farm and a supply chain or distribution channel
But what matters is the groceries and where to buy them
The way I acquired that power myself was to surrender to a practical programme of action to change my beliefs, thinking, and behaviour
That gave me the power (and direction) to stay sober and thrive
Steps Two and Three in a nutshell:
I did not have power
Others had acquired it
When I did what they did
I got what they got: power
It did not matter what mechanism was behind this: I could figure that out over time if I cared to, or I could let it be
The point is: I did not need to figure it out before I grabbed hold of the programme
You don't need to understand aerodynamics to board a plane
You just need a ticket
And the ticket is the willingness to take action
Three more notes:
(1) Prayer and meditation
Think of prayer as accessing a part of your mind you cannot access through ordinary thought
Think of it as reaching (using words) past the rat-and-lizard brain to a higher part of you, a higher part which is connected to everyone else's higher selves and maybe to other forces in the universe
The part that enjoys music and appreciates nature and looks after kittens and wants to help people in trouble
That part
You don't have to believe in the j-man or in any traditional notions of religion to pray
Prayer is just words of appreciation, affirmation, and request
Think of meditation as a way of sinking past the crappy surface of flotsam and jetsam frantic insta-face-tik-twitter to the peaceful ocean waters below
(2) Who owns the higher power?
No one
Just because some class-A d-bags claim to speak for the higher power does not mean they do
Push past them
They do not have VIP access
You have VIP access whenever you want it
It's humility that brings VIP access to the higher power, not certainty
(3) What about the jerks?
Step Four provides a structured process for getting over the fact there were and are world-class jerks in the world
Detachment and peace are possible, in time
For now, park the jerks
They're not worth stumbling over on your way to recovery