I remember calling up Sue, saying I wanted to drink. She said, 'AA is for people who don't want to drink,' and put the phone down.
I called her up again and said that I did not to want to drink but was scared I was going to. She said we were now in business, and we had a good conversation.
The same principle applies around Steps Six and Seven. If I get to Steps Six and Seven and discover there are aspects of my life I find objectionable, because they are causing myself or others suffering, but am unwilling to have God transform my life to have the problems transcended, I do, as the Book suggests, need to pray for willingness, but behind the prayer is a more fundamental problem.
Being unwilling to grow towards the ideal of Step Three, namely to have God be in charge of my life, with me as the servant, doing the grunt work, and getting a place in the Kingdom of the Here and Now in return, means I no longer believe I need an ongoing spiritual experience to maintain the recovered state. It means I believe that half measures will actually work, that there is a middle of the road solution.
When I believe I can hold an area of my life back from spiritual growth, I am heading for a drink. The Big Book suggests this, as does the Twelve and Twelve, repeatedly, in different ways.
The question concerns not the merits of giving up a particular defect or undergoing change in a particular area; the question is always universal and holistic; you cannot piss in one side of the glass and hope to drink out of the other.
It no longer amazes me how, when I am experiencing problems in one area, there is another area I am withholding from God in case my toys are taken away.
This is all or nothing; this is about having a perfect ideal to grow towards. It is also about knowing I can do nothing to grow towards that without God and that even then the externally manifest results will be quite imperfect, but within that imperfection I will be at peace.
As someone once said to me when I was fussing over unwillingness on an individual issue: so, how long before you drink?
I do not want to sound excessively dramatic. However, the crises do occur: once sound AA members do drink again. I cannot afford to hold anything back from God.