What does Step Two ask: "came to believe" what?

The words of the Step (p. 59)

"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." (p. 59). Three parts of the wording matter in the book's own handling of it:

• Came to believe. The book treats this as something arrived at, often slowly. "God comes to most men gradually" (p. 14); "Some of us grow into it more slowly." (p. 57). Appendix II says most spiritual experiences "develop slowly over a period of time" (Appendix II, p. 567).
• A Power greater than ourselves. Not a named God. The phrase came out of the argument over the draft Steps while the book was being written; Bill W. writes that "In Step Two we decided to describe God as a 'Power greater than ourselves'" as part of the compromise with the atheists and agnostics among the first members (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
• Could restore us to sanity. The Step asks for belief in a possibility. The book's own evidence for it is other members: "Every one of them has gained access to, and believes in, a Power greater than himself. This Power has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible." (p. 50).

What Chapter 4 says the belief is (pp. 44–57)

The chapter opens by telling the alcoholic that he "may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer" (p. 44), and that "about half our original fellowship" thought they were atheists or agnostics (p. 44). Its argument runs like this:

1. The need. Morals and philosophy did not save them: "the needed power wasn't there" (p. 45). "Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves." (p. 45). The book says its "main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem" (p. 45). See: "Lack of power, that was our dilemma": what dilemma?
2. How little is required to start. "We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results" (p. 46), "even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God" (p. 46). "Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him." (p. 46).
3. The one question. "We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. 'Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?'" (p. 47). On that "simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built" (p. 47). The footnote on that page sends the reader to Appendix II.
4. Why believe. The chapter argues that everyone already lives by assumptions and faith of some kind (pp. 48–49, 53–54), that "People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about" (p. 49), and that the members' own lives are the record: "When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did." (p. 52).
5. The choice. "we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?" (p. 53). See: What does "either God is everything or else He is nothing" mean in its place?
6. Where the belief is found. "deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God" (p. 55); "We found the Great Reality deep down within us." (p. 55). See: What does "deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God" say?
7. The example. The chapter closes with the minister's son who thought he was an atheist, the question "Who are you to say there is no God?" (p. 56), and the result: "His alcoholic problem was taken away." (p. 56). "God had restored his sanity." (p. 57). "Even so has God restored us all to our right minds." (p. 57). See: "Who are you to say there is no God?": who says it, and to whom?

Chapter 4 does not say what the Power is. It says the conception is the reader's own (pp. 46–47), that the matter of how each member conceives it is one "for each individual to settle for himself" (p. 50), and the same thing is said to the newcomer in Chapter 7: "He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him." (p. 93). See: Can your Higher Power be anything, a doorknob, the group?

"Restore us to sanity": what sanity?

The book does not define sanity in Step Two, but it uses the word and its opposite about one thing above all: the thinking that leads to the first drink.

• Chapter 3 is about "the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking" (p. 35). Of Jim's idea that whiskey in milk could not hurt him: "we call this plain insanity" (p. 37). Of all alcoholics: "where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane" (p. 38).
• Bill's story: "Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink" (p. 8).
• Chapter 11, the man in the hotel lobby (the chapter doesn't name him; its footnote ties the trip to Akron, p. 156): "Again it was the old, insidious insanity—that first drink." Then, when he decided to phone a clergyman to find another alcoholic: "His sanity returned and he thanked God." (p. 154).
• Chapter 6, after the amends: "And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned." (p. 84).

So in the book's own usage, the sanity Step Two speaks of is first of all a sane reaction to alcohol, which Chapter 3 says the alcoholic cannot supply for himself: "His defense must come from a Higher Power." (p. 43). The book's "insanity" is not the common saying about repeating the same thing; see Is the definition of insanity in the Big Book?

How Chapter 5 passes over it

Chapter 5 does not walk Step Two by name. After the Steps are listed it says that the description of the alcoholic, "the chapter to the agnostic," and the stories make clear three ideas: "(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. (c) That God could and would if He were sought." (p. 60). Then: "Being convinced, we were at Step Three" (p. 60). So (b) and (c) read as the belief Step Two names, and Chapter 4 is where it is argued, though the book doesn't label them that way. See: What are the "a, b, c" of [p. 60](/big-book/page-60/) ("probably no human power… God could and would if He were sought")?

Bill's own Step Two (p. 12)

Chapter 1 has the moment in a sentence. When Ebby said, "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" (p. 12), Bill writes: "It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning." (p. 12).

See: Do I have to be religious to work the Steps?, Does Step 12 require believing in God a certain way?

Read it yourself

• Chapter 4, "We Agnostics" (pp. 44–57): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt4.pdf
• Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 59–60): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
• Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" (pp. 35–43): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
• Chapter 1, "Bill's Story" (p. 12): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt1.pdf
• Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (pp. 567–568): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
• The full book: https://onlineliterature.aa.org

Sources

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.