Step 2: Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

The Sistine Chapel--before and after restoration as described in Paths to Recovery.

1. What is my concept of a Higher Power at this time?

My concept of a Higher Power is God but not really the God of my childhood. Though I grew up in one of those literalist traditions, the God of my childhood still seemed like a better bet than the one I came to believe in later on. Though the God of my childhood  (a la Jonathan Edwards and John Milton) would fling you into the flaming pit,

there were ways around this. All you had to do was accept Jesus as your personal savior, and you wouldn't burn for all eternity. Nothing hard about that. Also, everyone was a sinner, no one was perfect, so you prayed a lot for forgiveness.

But there was also some benefit to my childhood God. For example, there was Matthew 7:7. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

This is the basis for what I call outcome-based prayer. Ask for X and you get X. Face it--this kind of a deal had massive possibilities. There was also a hymn that went along with the verse. At any rate, I'm not going to say Matthew 7:7 didn't work--it often did--but not always in the time frame of my choice; moreover, it should have come with the Chinese proverb: Be careful what you ask for. For anyone who plays the options market, it was a lot like that. Please God let Ford hit 14 strike--or at least go in that direction. You can bet Ford would hit 14--but not before time decay had either eaten away at your option or it had flat-out expired.

After my breakdown and after I lost my money, my concept of God became much more Melvillian. God just let the universe run amok--if He even existed. I no longer believed that there was a divine plan. I no longer believed that things happened for a reason. I still prayed as a pro forma motion, an insurance plan, but I didn't expect much in return.