Step Two: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
2nd Step Principle: My need for the ability to tell the true from the false with a whole and sane mind is the beginning of my connection with an untapped Power greater than myself. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)
AA Extracted Value: Hope
ACA Extracted Values: Open-mindedness & Clarity
Other Extracted Values: Awareness
There was a time when the word sanity felt like a distant, almost mythical concept—something reserved for others who didn’t carry the chaos I carried inside. But Step Two invites me to gently question the assumptions I’ve lived under. It doesn’t demand immediate belief. It doesn’t threaten or corner. It offers a possibility. That’s all—just maybe. Maybe I don’t have to stay lost. Maybe there is a way out. Maybe I don’t have to figure it all out on my own anymore.
That possibility is where hope begins.
The principle that struck me most is this: the ability to tell the true from the false. That sounds simple, but in the fog of dysfunction—especially as an adult child—it’s not. In fact, it might be the most difficult and most essential gift I can receive. In my old patterns, I confused love with control, guilt with responsibility, chaos with aliveness, and emotional numbness with safety. That distortion of truth was the insanity I was operating under.
So when I consider a Power greater than myself, I think of clarity. Not lightning bolts or grand visions, but the quiet power that lets me see the next right thing clearly. That lets me pause, breathe, and ask, “Is this true?” That helps me discern the real from the reactive. That kind of clarity is divinely sane.
Hope isn’t fantasy. Hope doesn’t float. It leans in. Like the metaphor of archery, hope isn’t just pointing in the right direction. It’s breath control. It’s stillness. It’s trust in the strength of your own arm guided by something beyond it. There is discipline in it. There is surrender, yes—but it’s not passive. It’s a relational act. I do my part by aiming well. My Higher Power does the rest by allowing grace to guide the arrow.
I’ve spent years aiming blindly, without realizing my sights were misaligned. I’ve hoped for things that weren’t mine to carry. I’ve hoped without action. That’s not hope. That’s despair dressed in a costume. True hope is choosing to keep aiming, keep breathing, and trust that if I keep showing up with willingness, I will hit something real, something healing. Maybe not today. But the arc is shifting. The mind is clearing. And I’m learning to tell the true from the false.
That, to me, is the first flicker of sanity.
And that flicker is enough for today.
Daily Reprieve 
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