If we willingly surrender ourselves to the spiritual discipline of the Twelve Steps, our lives can be transformed. We can become mature, responsible individuals with a greater capacity for joy fulfillment, and wonder. Though we may never be perfect, continued spiritual progress can reveal to us our enormous potential. We can discover that we are both worthy of love and loving. We can love others without losing ourselves, and can learn to accept love in return. Our sight, once clouded and confused, can clear and we can be able to perceive reality and recognize truth. Courage and fellowship can replace fear. We can be able to risk failure in order to develop new, hidden talents. Our lives, no matter how battered and degraded, can yield hope to share with others. We can begin to feel and can come to know the vastness of our emotions, but we will not be slaves to them. Our secrets can no longer bind us in shame. As we gain the ability to forgive ourselves, our families, and the world, our choices may expand. With dignity we can stand for ourselves, but not against our fellows. Serenity and peace can have meaning for us, as we allow our lives and the lives of those we love to flow day by day with God's ease, balance, and grace. No longer terrified, we can discover we are free to delight in life's paradox, mystery, and awe. We can laugh more. Fear can be replaced by faith, and gratitude can come naturally as we realize that our Higher Power is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Can we really grow to such proportions? Only if we accept life as a continuing process of maturation and evolution toward wholeness. Then we suddenly begin to notice these gifts appearing. We see them in those who walk beside us. Sometimes slowly or haltingly, occasionally in great bursts of brilliance, those who work the Steps change and grow toward light, toward health, and toward their Higher Power. Watching others, we realize this is also possible for us.