Grey Book Reflection
If the word God bothers you, as it did many of us in the beginning, substitute Recovery, Good, Love, N.A., Peace or anything positive, just as long as you mean it.
Gray Book, p. 38 (Step Three, Lines 7-9)
As using addicts many of us cried out to God, with fox hole prayers. We called out to God when we were running out of drugs or caught by the police. Some of us never believed in God at all.
When some of us came to N.A., we had trouble accepting God as an entity. Some of us suffered guilt from the things we did in active addiction. The mention of God frightened or shamed us, so we rejected God.
Some of us had God shoved down our throats as children, so we were closed minded at first. The First Step assures us that we're not God. To stay Clean and Recover, we would need a Power Greater than ourselves, and it wasn't us. This Power that we tapped into in our Second Step removed our obsession to use.
This Power didn't have to be the God religion talks about. God could mean any Loving Power Greater Than Ourselves or the Group, collectively. We can also choose the Spiritual Principles of Narcotics Anonymous.
We can choose whatever Power we want, as long as it is Loving, Caring, Forgiving, and outside ourselves. The Second Step reminded us that the Process of Coming To Believe, is what Restores us to Sanity. So it's the Actions we do that Restore us. Going to Meetings, doing Service in our Home Group, reading and studying Literature, and taking Suggestions from our Sponsors.
These Actions are a Power Greater than ourselves and can Relieve our obsession to use and Helps us with our thinking. We have to be Honest with our Belief for it to work. G-ood, 0-rderly, D-irection seems to work for some of us. For others, it was the G-ift 0-f D-esperation.
Whatever it is we have to mean it.
We will choose a God of Our Own Understanding. We will be Honest with that Belief, by doing the Action.