Big Book

[root]

One should not pray for oneself unless it is to be useful to others. Only in this way can I hope to be heard. However, if I do so, then yes. My friend promised that if I do all this, I will enter into a new relationship with my Creator, and I will fully embrace this way of life. It will be a solution to all my problems. The main requirement for creating and maintaining the new order of things was faith in the power of God, combined with sufficient goodwill, honesty, and humility. These are simple, but not easy things. The price had to be paid. Self-centeredness had to be eliminated. Everything had to be offered to the Father of Light, who stands above us all.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 13]

It was rare for a person to conscientiously follow our path and still fail. Generally, those who do not step onto the path of recovery are the ones who cannot or do not want to follow our simple program unconditionally: these are the men and women who, by their nature, are incapable of being honest with themselves.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 55]

If you have decided to join us and are willing to make sacrifices for this, then it is time for you to take certain steps. We hesitated at certain steps. We thought we could find an easier, more comfortable solution. But we could not. Therefore, we ask you as seriously as possible: from the very beginning, set aside all fear and be very thorough! Some of us tried to cling to our previous ideas, but we got nowhere until we completely stopped doing so.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 55]

Remember: we are dealing with alcohol. Cunning, deceptive, powerful alcohol! If we do not receive help, it will overpower us. But there is Someone who is capable of everything. That is none other than God. We hope you will find Him as soon as possible!  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 55]

Half-measures availed us nothing. We stood at a crossroads. We asked for His protection and care with complete reliance. Here are the Steps we took and recommend as a recovery program:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. As a result of following these Steps, we had a spiritual awakening, and we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 56]

Do not be discouraged! None of us were able to fully follow these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow spiritually. The principles laid down here lead to growth. We aim for spiritual progress, not perfection.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 57]

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter about the doubters, and our personal experiences before and after our sobering make three things obvious:

a) We are alcoholics, and we could not manage our lives.
b) Probably no human power could have relieved us of our alcoholism.
c) God can and will if sought.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 57]

We have come to the Third Step, in which we decided to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. But what exactly did we mean by this, and how did we act?

The first requirement is to realize that relying on our own will, our lives are unlikely to be successful. In connection with this question, we almost always come into conflict with someone or something, even if our intentions are good. Most people try to manage their lives on their own. Everyone resembles an actor who wants to run the whole show alone: they want to arrange the lighting, the set, and they want to direct the chorus and the other actors as well. [...] Our actor is egocentric – that is, self-centered.

Selfishness – self-centeredness! We believe this is the root of all our troubles. Driven by fear, self-deception, and a hundred forms of selfishness and self-pity, we trample on our fellow human beings, and they take revenge. Sometimes they offend us, seemingly without reason, but underlying these opinions is always the fact that at some point in the past we made selfish decisions, and these later made us vulnerable.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 57-59]

We believe, therefore, that we have actually caused our troubles, that they stem from us. The alcoholic is one of the most extreme examples of unrestrained stubbornness, though he usually does not see it this way. We alcoholics must first free ourselves from egocentrism. We are forced to, or it will finish us off! God allows for our release. Often, we do not even see a way to free ourselves from egocentrism without God’s help. Many of us have tried to rely on moral and philosophical principles, but we could not live according to them, no matter how much we wanted to. We were also unable to restrain our self-centeredness, no matter how much we wanted to or tried to do so relying on our own strength. We needed God’s help.

How did we do this and why? First of all – we had to stop playing God, as that led nowhere. Second – we determined that from then on, God would be the director of our life’s play. He is the Boss; we are the subordinates. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are very simple, and this concept was the foundation of our upcoming new life.  
[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 59]