So, let me start by saying: I have gone to other twelve-step fellowships, I have read self-help, religious, and spiritual books, and I have engaged in protracted therapeutic processes. Sometimes they have helped enormously. Sometimes they have been dead ends. Sometimes the urge has been spot on. Sometimes the urge has been misplaced. If in doubt, try it. But be aware that there are other reasons for all this apparent seeking.
One of the marvellous things about going to another fellowship, buying another self-help, religious, or spiritual book, or engaging in another protracted therapeutic process is that I can thereby put off change for years. I have done this on many occasions. Sometimes I'm actually at Steps Six and Seven, not Step One. The truth can be that I don't want to stop doing, thinking, or believing whatever is wrong and start doing, thinking, or believing whatever is right. Instead, I devise complex holding patterns under the heading of recovery.
These days I'm getting much better at sidestepping the swamp of distraction:
Forgive them now. Make the phone call now. Don't eat the cake now. Don't spend the money now. Keep my mouth shut now. Mind my own business now. Don't text him now. Clear the shelf now. Answer the email now. Do the work now. Forgive them now. Trust God now. Stop worrying now.
I can either stop eating the cake now. Or I can talk about eating cakes for months, years, or decades and then stop eating the cake. At some point I'm going to have to stop eating the cake now. Why wait?
Other fellowships can really help. But I don't need a separate twelve-step fellowship for each defect of character. Just when I've exhausted all other options. The point of twelve-step fellowships is to enable me to access God. Once I've accessed God through one, I now have the resource I need. How about I access God now to deal with the problem that is in front of me? What's stopping me? I don't want to access God. That's the real truth. Because I think God will take away my toys. In other words my character defects. But I don't want to admit that, because then I'd have to deal with it. So I make it look as though I'm trying to access God by giving myself another long road to walk down, at the end of which is the God I've already found. The real reason for the road is not to find God but to remove my guilt for not wanting to find God, because, hey, look, I'm trying aren't I?
God: Hi, I'm here.
Me: Wait a second.
God: What?
Me: I'm going to do the Twelve Steps again.
God: Why?
Me: To find You.
God: But I'm here.
Me: Later. Can't you see? I'm busy finding You. Leave me alone.
God: Srsly?
Look over your shoulder. God's already there. Holding His hand out. God can do anything if I'm willing. Am I really willing to have God remove the defect now and forever? Am I really willing to take the action I fear will be painful? Thought not. So: let's dance the fellowship dance, let's dance the meeting dance, let's dance the twelve-step dance. Plans. Worksheets. Procedures. Accountability. Checking-in. Bottom lines. Top lines. Stay busy enough, God won't realise I'm avoiding Him. And, in the meantime, down goes the cake, down go my drawers, off goes the text I shouldn't send, snappety-snap goes my Big Fat Mouth, and another hour passes with no productive activity. But guilt-free! Recovery jazz hands!
At the heart of surrender to God is the bleakness of withdrawing my belief in the hopeless hopes held out by the material world. The first way of avoiding that bleakness is to act out in a thousand ways. That'll keep ya busy for, oh, a decade or three. The second way of avoiding that bleakness is to engage in processes that purport to solve the problem but simply keep me busy and distracted.
Walk into the bleakness now. Because there is no other time. And you'll discover it's anything but ... bleak.