Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP SIX

In A.A. meetings all over the world, statements just like
this are heard daily. It is plain for everybody to see that each
sober A.A. member has been granted a release from this
very obstinate and potentially fatal obsession. So in a very
complete and literal way, all A.A.'s have "become entirely
ready" to have God remove the mania for alcohol from their
lives. And God has proceeded to do exactly that.

Having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism,
why then shouldn't we be able to achieve by the same means
a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect? This
is a riddle of our existence, the full answer to which may
be only in the mind of God. Nevertheless, at least a part of
the answer to it is apparent to us.

When men and women pour so much alcohol into them-
selves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most un-
natural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preser-
vation, they seem bent upon self-destruction. They work
against their own deepest instinct. As they are humbled
by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace
of God can enter them and expel their obsession. Here
their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their
Creator's desire to give them new life. For nature and God
alike abhor suicide.

But most of our other difficulties don't fall under such
a category at all. Every normal person wants, for example,
to eat, to reproduce, to be somebody in the society of his
fellows. And he wishes to be reasonably safe and secure as
he tries to attain these things. Indeed, God made him that
way. He did not design man to destroy himself by alcohol,
but He did give man instincts to help him to stay alive.