(The following is a personal post from one of our members.)
When I started out attending SA meetings, I was still thinking for myself and not ready to listen. I was looking for some ideas that I could pick from others to give me a set of tools that I could use to solve my own problem in my own way. I wanted to "help myself" to just as much of the program as I thought I wanted. I was still being my own god.
Sure, I've heard the 12 Step program (AA/SA) referred to as a "self-help" program plenty of times. It's not.
What the program is for me is a "God will" program. My part in this is to surrender to his will for me, moment by moment, and let him do whatever he wants with my life. Step 3 says that I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to care of God. The rest of the Steps are about keeping me in that attitude of surrender to God as a pattern for life. And as I've experienced how to stay connected rightly with God by working through all of those Steps, I know I can trust that "God will" continue to do for me what I cannot do, and to do with me whatever he thinks best.
The "self" in all of this is simply that which I must surrender to God. Sure, we will say it's "progress not perfection". But it's pretty hard to make good progress when you start out headed in the wrong direction. The 12 Steps, worked under the direction of a sponsor and not just my own sick thinking, are in the right direction.
