February. 2nd month, 2nd Step - Came to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  How do I practice this step as a person with long-term sobriety? Where am I insane, if insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?

I'm not one of those who recoiled from Step Two with "Don't tell me I'm insane!" By the time I crawled to Step One, I knew that I was powerless over my addiction and my life was most certainly unmanageable. I was sticking a needle in my arm (& other parts) 4-5 times a day, drinking beer for breakfast (after a healthy protein shake, of course), and not speaking in complete sentences. With Step Two, I could not, did not argue that my behavior in regards to alcohol & drug use was anything other than insane. Restore me, please.  

In treatment, we were taught along the lines of the 12x12, that the Power Greater than ourselves was the group - two or more sober alcoholics had more wisdom than my detoxing self. We were encouraged to say out loud whatever crazy thought was doing laps in our brain - thoughts about getting high, a crush, a fear - to take the power out of the idea, and to get input. That still works. If I'm obsessing on an outcome, a scenario, a "what if?!," saying it out loud to a friend, adviser, or the group either exposes the fantasy for what it is, or helps me gain perspective. I also use a "God Box" - a container full of slips of paper with various concerns and worries jotted down. Work stuff, health (mine or others), financial future, particular people - all those things that can course through  my mind in a given day (and it's the thoughts that run over & over that make it to the box). Writing them down and closing the lid can, at least temporarily, halt my ruminations, which is very much a return to sanity. (I recently learned a good follow up: open the God Box in a few months and jot down the solutions for each issue - a nice bit of closure, and evidence that life works itself out better without my attempts to control).

So where am I insane today? I have been restored to sanity in regards to my substance use, one day at a time, but where else does my thinking veer off into no-man's land? Maybe in the ways I try to exert my will onto my spouse? Thinking I can eat like a marathoner when I'm only running 10k's? Those moments when I forget that Higher Power is in charge? When I try to figure out details of my retirement, a full two years from now (especially with the volatile stock market - will I retire in 2020? Won't I?!)?  

I used to be able to outrun the internal discomfort that came with the cognitive dissonance between my brain and reality (i.e. my mind is walking down the garden path while my butt in is a chair at a meeting). Coffee worked, chasing a potential relationship,sometimes shopping...  anything for that momentary thrill that transported me from whatever discomfort I was feeling. But as I heard in one of my women's groups recently, the old distractions simply don't work anymore. Maybe that's what is meant by "the road gets narrower." I can see my own B.S. in real time whereas in the past it would take post-crash inventories to get at the truth.

And the capital "T" truth is that all is well. I am human, with worries and fears and emotions around situations. I can acknowledge those feelings, whether they feel good or not in the moment, knowing, through experience, that they will dissipate if I simply allow the process. Sometimes that takes a good cry (or two or three), sometimes it does involve putting pen to paper. Sometimes it simply means saying "oh, hello fear (or insecurity, or anger, or whatever). What is it you need?"  I don't always have the answer, but it does come when I can quiet myself enough to listen.

That, to me, is being restored to sanity. I recently listened to a speaker CD where the person giving the talk described Steps One through Nine as being vehicles to clear the mental clutter so that we can hear the still, small voice of wisdom within. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly... 

So as I embrace Step Two during this month of February, teasing us in the northwest with daffodil shoots and daphne blooms, I give thanks for all the ways I am restored to sanity when I but ask. Ask, and remember that "figure it out" isn't one of the Steps.

What causes the insanity of your "isms" to flare? What might belong in your God Box? What does it mean to you, today, to be restored to sanity?