If we surrender, truly surrender, our will and our lives to the care of God as we understand Him, there are no specific guarantees. True surrender is unconditional—not dependent upon any particular outcome. For example, if I surrender in order to save my marriage and my marriage fails, do I then withdraw? If I surrender sexual fantasy and acting upon that fantasy in order to achieve a joyous and free “sexual life” or the perfect relationship, I have not surrendered unconditionally. I have a reservation—my own quietly held reservation that someday, just someday, I’ll be able to truly enjoy lust.

I can no longer contract with God as I tried to do as a child. “If I am good and do thus and such, God (of my childish understanding) will reward me in the manner that I choose.” My addiction flourished under the influence of my repeated attempts at self-reward when I thought that the God of my childhood should, but did not, reward me.

Are there any guarantees? Only one. If I surrender and attend to the Twelve Steps, I shall have a spiritual awakening as the result. The Twelfth Step states that my awakening is “the,” not “a,” result of the Steps.

Some of us have come to the Fellowship to save our marriage, job, or home, or to avoid institutions, jails, or death. I was told that I must stop doing what I was doing if I was to trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. My pain and fear were great enough, and I could not conceive of or afford any alternative. I stayed and tried to stop. I listened (sometimes) and asked myself, “What happened to his job?”; “Did it ‘work’ for him?”; “How is her marriage working?”; and so forth.

A troubled enquirer, I sought specific guarantees and the proper method of contracting with God for them. I knew what I willed for myself; my question was how to attain it. Separated from others by my differing attitudes towards personal will and God’s will, I was tenuously connected by my common experience with addiction to people who had something I wanted. I heard that how it was for me was how it had been for them.

In time, by the Grace of God, came that quiet moment when I ran out of questions and first believed in the possibility of a new way of life. A quiet moment of Connection grew out of others sharing their experiences, strengths, and hopes at the simplest level. When I heard what had happened to others and saw how they were today, a spark of light penetrated my addiction’s defenses—when least expected and for the least predictable reason. No promotion, no specific guarantees, no contracts, just the promise of a spiritual awakening to a new way of life.