Originally Posted by
Snarf 
My recovery began in AA, but I don't really attend meetings anymore. AA told me to believe that a power greater than myself could help rid me of the obsession to drink alcohol, and I found that power in God. Far as I can tell, the 12 Steps of AA are all covered in the Bible, so as long as I'm living my life in accordance with what I believe God's teachings to be, I should be doing the 12 Steps in my life every single day.
That's not to say you have to believe in God to have success in AA; quite the opposite. In my case, it was almost like once I found God through AA, and put my faith in Him, the actual AA part was superfluous.
Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but it does to me.
This makes absolutely perfect sense and I agree 100%. I can't say AA helped me find faith again, but it helped build me up again if that makes sense. I find myself working the steps (without even realizing) and see myself changing before my very eyes because of my new found faith, not because of AA.
But about AA... When you have spent your whole life as a con-artist, a thief, a person who doesn't understand themselves but only knows how to get that bottle or brew, etc etc... AA gives you some good solid principles on how to live as a new person, a person you can relate to, how you can see yourself changing daily, you actually find yourself saying at times WWJD? It's just amazing the type of rewarding life I now live, and I must credit some of that to AA.
And I was at a meeting a few days ago... and although you hear the promises after every meeting, it stuck a nerve at me, how true these things really do come true... if you have the capacity...
THE A.A. PROMISES
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.