For years within AA, I did not want to surrender absolutely. I wanted the programme to help me more successfully live a material, i.e. a non-spiritual life. A spiritual life is not a life without material obligations or activities or even enjoyments: it is a life where the direction and power to do such things come entirely from God, and the objective is single, namely to serve God, through utter surrender to Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve.
I had to abandon the notion that a material life itself would satisfy me, and I had to be willing to leave the cave of my own drama, victimhood, self-pity, negativity, faithlessness, and defeatism. This is what took the time. Once I abandoned myself completely to the last three Steps, filling my life with service became the easiest thing in the world.
The only thing stopping me from maximising my service to God was my own lack of willingness.