IvanMike

In the same manner that your faith that flipping the light switch in your house will turn the light on. yes. - You can sit in the dark with that faith for a long time.

I have learned that faith + experience = trust. To be sure, in the beginning I probably only had desperate hope, not faith. I lived on the evidence I saw in the lives of men who said they had been where I was and who had obviously found a way out. Not just from using, but from not being comfortable in their own skin with or without getting loaded. I identified with them and saw that something was working for them.

The second step was (and still mostly is) for me a math problem. My sponsor's name is John. IF Ivan = John AND John + 12 steps = happy joyous and free recovery THEN Ivan + 12 steps = happy joyous and free recovery.

The difference is that over time my application of the steps (my "works" if you will), began to produce evidence in my own life. I no longer have to rely on the "fruits" (sorry, couldn't resist) I see in the lives of others.

"We came to believe..." implies a process, not an event, and my own experience has shown this to be true. So actually, when I think about it some more, the idea that faith must precede the works is not entirely true. For me it has been a chicken and egg phenomena. My action or "works" were carried out in sheer desperation as I didn't know what else to do. Despite my enormous misgivings about, and downright hostility to, the 12-step process, I noticed that it was working.