Originally Posted by
KnowHope 
This is not news to AA members. They have learned that a single surrender is not enough. Under the wise leadership of the AA "founding fathers" the need for continued endeavor to maintain that miracle has been steadily stressed. The Twelve Steps urge repeated inventories, not just one, and the Twelfth Step is in itself a routine reminder that one must work at preserving sobriety.
IMNSHO spiritual growth is the direct result of repeated struggle/surrender cycles. If you look at the twelve steps, most of them are done in pairs; 4&5, 6&7, 8&9, 10&11 plus step 12 is a compound statement requiring a struggle to help others but a surrender of the results. Success or failure is not ours to pocket.
Almost every major religion has a branch for expedited spiritual growth. The Hindue's have the Tantra. The Buddhist's have Zen. The Muslims have Sufi's. The Catholics have Jesuit's. These branch's are all distinct in that they take extreme measures to discover enlightenment. They are like the daredevils of the spiritual world.
There are many analogies to this struggle surrender cycle; The parable of the Prodigal Son is just one of many stories telling of a venture to discover a new world followed by defeat or a humble return home. I myself like to compare it to a body-builder struggling 100% at the gym till it hurts, followed by a rest cycle so his muscles will rebuild themselves. Or perhaps the metaphor of a baseball player struggling to go around the bases so that he can return to home plate a claim his homerun. "Nothing ventured - nothing gained".
Looking at the 12 steps as either struggle steps or surrender steps, it is easy to see that all the odd steps are a surrenders, most of the even steps are a struggles and step 12 is "try to carry the message" followed by "practice these principles", surrender is one of the key principles.
Life feeds life pure and simple. In the material world, flesh feeds flesh. In the spiritual world, spirit feeds spirit; "We must suffer to get well - we must surrender to win".