Gateway to Sanity

The words of the Second Step struck me with a kind of elemental force--a force I recognized as truth the first time I read them in southern Arizona after my husband had called AA for help. My first reaction was anger toward him for letting "other people," as I put it, share in the secrets of our married life. It was 1966--we knew nothing about AA--and I didn't think it was anyone's business if I drank a little or a lot. And anyway, I had pressures in my marriage and job which made me special, and allowed the letting-off of a little steam each night! My rationalizing, of course, was the mirror image of Step Two: I believed that through the force of my own will and intelligence, I could shape the world into my personal concept of sanity!