The Essence of Step Two - Safety

Safety isn’t soft—it’s the engine of change. We take a fresh look at Step Two and flip the script: before debating beliefs or defining a higher power, build the conditions that let honesty and help actually land. When your nervous system feels safe, writing gets real, conversations stop performing, and progress stops stalling.

We share a simple ethos—laugh daily, work hard at what matters, and lead with love—then ground it in practice. You’ll hear how structure turns emotional chaos into a path you can follow, why stopping the noisiest addiction opens space for deeper healing, and how asking for help becomes a learned skill rather than a last resort. We walk through therapy pitfalls (like paying to hide), the relief of telling one whole truth to one safe person, and the role of sponsors, mentors, and community in keeping you honest when willpower gets thin.

Spirituality finds its natural place once safety is established. Whether you grew up in church, left it, or never had language for faith, Step Two can be a humane bridge: admit you can’t do it alone, invite support, and let curiosity—not pressure—guide what comes next. Along the way, we name common traumas that fuel compulsions, show how small daily practices create clarity, and point to a freer way to live: less hypervigilance, more peace, and 24 hours you can genuinely enjoy.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who needs a safer start to recovery, subscribe for more grounded guidance, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your story can change—begin by making it safe to tell.

Chapters

• 0:02 Safety, Help, Spirituality: Step Two
• 0:14 Work, Laugh, Love: Recovery Ethos
• 0:40 Join the Recovery Freedom Circle
• 1:30 Step One: Why Change Matters
• 2:30 Safety Enables Emotional Work
• 4:36 Structure, Writing, and Real Progress
• 5:17 Therapy Walls and Honesty
• 6:03 Stopping Addictions to Open Up
• 6:31 Safety First, Then Ask for Help
• 7:08 Courage, Vulnerability, and Support
• 7:34 Mentors, Coaches, and Community
• 8:20 Freedom Through Recovery
• 8:29 Spirituality After Safety
• 9:17 Step Two: Openness and Clarity
• 9:49 Naming Trauma Without Fear
• 10:44 Choosing Safe People to Share With
• 11:11 Living Peacefully, One Day at a Time
• 11:51 Closing: Toward Total Freedom

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Oh, we're going to be talking about safety, help, spirituality here in step two. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day to work hard, work hard in recovery, work hard in your relationships, work hard in your job, business, school, just work. And to love unconditional, just put much more love out there and watch more love return. Now, encourage people to join the Facebook group Recovery Freedom Circle. Link is in the show notes. It's a community where we talk about the steps, we talk about recovery, healing. Could be death, could be some type of career change, could be a thousand things. But just ask questions, and we're here to support each other to grow so we can live our best life. Now, let's jump in to this week's episode. The essence of step two. Step two is about safety. A lot of people think it's about, oh, it's about understanding about higher power God, and you're you're coming to believe. No, no. The essence is about safety. How a person can start to feel safe. Now, it could be safety around some type of spiritual being, higher power God, but I think it that makes it much more difficult for newcomers. So I said the essence of step one, and we're going to be talking about this as we go through all these 12 weeks. The essence of step one is about getting a person to understand that they need to change. Right now, there are so many things in their life that are either upside down or that need to be addressed. And the way to do any type of change, any type of emotional work, because a person in an addiction has trauma, has bouts of loneliness, pieces of their inside themselves where they feel this void, and they can't fill up their hearts. What is necessary? Well, what is necessary is to start talking. And that's why in the beginning, to me, step one is to start getting comfortable. Best is if you stop your addiction. For me, it was first stopping alcohol three years later, then stopping gambling where I didn't drink or gamble and I could really focus on my emotions. And we're talking here about step two. That's why safety is so important, because if we're going to be dealing with any type of emotional work, now with the Recovery Freedom Circle, I guide you through these 72 questions over the course of 18 weeks. But if you're going through therapy, you're going through the original 12 steps, you're also doing some writing. It's not as structured, because I believe all addicts need structure, and that's why a syllabus and a pretty much a system course is the best way to do it. But even if you take the original 12 steps, the way Bill W. laid it out, there's going to be a certain amount of writing. But you're not going to get comfortable with any type of inventory, making a list to make amends, listing anything about your character, whether it's character strengths or character defects. It is you have to get to this point of safety. And I'm a big believer is I was finally able to open up more and more within with my therapist. I was in therapy for seven years. But it took probably now a good year and a half. I was going to therapy and still gambling. So I was full of myself for a year and a half. And I was the actual definition of crazy and stupid. So 36 weeks. Um and for no 18 months. And you were I was paying someone weekly to lie to them. Because I was kind of in in and out. My therapist claims that he always knew. I don't know. I mean, that's always a question, you know. Was he there just trying to collect check? Maybe. But I know that there was a part of me as I was gambling, I was still had blocks. I still had walls up. And I wasn't able to actually move forward. And that really bothered me that I wasn't able to open up. Now it finally, when I stopped gambling, I was able to open up. But that's why I firmly believe that when I finally was able to make progress in talking about spirituality, higher power of God, and whether it was with my sponsors or within my therapist or within my own reading, I'm a big believer in just going on the internet, finding books about emotional health, so then I could keep growing. But I had to be get to that point of safety to write things down. And then once I felt safe, I had to be able to ask for help. Because that is the number one issue that people with an addiction that are trying to stop, as well as people even without an addiction, why they struggle too much in life, is because they do feel feel that they can ask for help. And asking for help is actually a sign of strength. It means you're vulnerable. It means that there's a certain amount of courage. Now I know why a lot of people don't do it, because a lot of people don't want, feel like if they ask too many questions, they're gonna, someone's gonna think that they're too dumb, they're stupid, they're weak, they can't figure things out. And that is the first thing from the truth. Life is very complex. You're not supposed to know everything. Same reason we go to school and we take, we go to one teacher for science, one teacher for history, one teacher for English. It's no different than we need lots of different either friends, advisors, mentors, teachers, coaches. We need all of that. And that's part of why I share what I share is that I know after now started this journey back in 1997, over 28 years, and I know a lot about self-sabotage, tried drunk, giving up one addiction, continuing another addiction, finally letting go, and you know, this whole kind of growth process, and there's no need to always feel like I've got to keep learning. There comes to a point where recovery should have that freedom. And if you ask for help and you feel safe, you can make progress. Then you can actually start talking about higher power, God's spirituality. But and then I think you can initiate that however you work the step two, but I like to bring it on further down the line when a person is really more open to talking about these kind of more personal items because people either grew up with in the church like me, and then they stopped going, or they never had any semblance of any religion or church. And so they always felt like it was an unknown, which is easier to say than you are an atheist or agnostic. But here's the point: the point is, is you've got to get to the point the feeling and the feeling safe to move forward. So the essence is to me always about change in step one, safety in step two, which allows also you to become much more open and honest, start becoming more self-aware, and you get more clarity. And as you're asking for help, you are getting to actually three the reasons you've stayed in these addictions from all the different traumas that we've all most of us have suffered, sexual traumas, financial money traumas, uh, within our own family traumas, as well as even neighborhood bullying, school problems. We've all had to deal with a lot of different traumas at different intensities, levels, uh, and throw in death, throw in uh moving, throw, throw in either success and failure in life in school, and with family, with relationships. And that's just a lot to handle. And I try to want to, you know, make this an enjoyable experience because I think too many people fear, just like fear for asking for help, they fear to do emotional work because they think that they're gonna have to cry, they're gonna have to reveal more about themselves. Now you get to pick who you want to reveal yourself to. Now, I feel like it's better to live life of an as an open book because you're never looking over your shoulder, you don't have this elevated levels of anxiety. You're able to live free, you have more peace, you live in a certain serenity, and that is the way to live. To just enjoy each 24 hours because that is all we have. Enjoy these 24 hours. Here we are, October 2025. I want you guys to live your best life, understand that life is wonderful, and that there is a way to total freedom. With that, we're gonna conclude this episode of the 1% recovery.