When I arrived at my first meeting of AA, I felt lost and defeated. I needed help. I believed I was in for the challenge of a lifetime. Only the lack of options had dropped me at the gates of willingness. All of my adult experiences with change convinced me that quitting alcohol would be near impossible.
That very first meeting showed me a different path—one of surrender, trust, and grace.
"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol." (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 84)
I no longer must fight. My strength is not what keeps me sober; my Higher Power does the heavy lifting. The Twelve Steps are not about gritting my teeth and muscling through—they are about yielding to a will greater than my own. As I practice them, my alcohol problem disappears, not because I defeated it, but because I placed it in God’s hands. My living problems, too, cease to be struggles when I ask a simple question: Does this require acceptance, or does it require change? Either way, the solution does not come from my own will but from His.
This principle is echoed in the scriptures. The Lord led the children of Israel through the wilderness for forty years, not just to bring them to the promised land, but to teach them reliance on Him:
"And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)
Like the Israelites, I have wandered through my own wilderness—of addiction, of self-will, of struggle. And just as He provided for them, He provides for me. My job is not to fight my way out of the wilderness but to trust that He is leading me through it.
Alan Cohen put it beautifully:
"There are lessons to be learned in every place. The mark of spiritual mastery is the ability to remember God wherever we go, and through whatever we experience."
The Twelve Steps help me do exactly that. They turn my focus from my own strength to God’s grace. They remind me that I do not walk this path alone. Whether in times of hunger or plenty, struggle or peace, He is there. And when I remember Him, I find that the struggle fades—not because life becomes easy, but because I am no longer carrying it alone.
From Mosiah 24:14 we read:
"And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for I will ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions."
So today, I choose surrender over struggle. I choose faith over fear. I choose to let go and let God.
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