12-Step programs aren't self-help programs. In fact, a good case could be made for saying that 12-Step programs are only for people who've tried self-help programs and found that they don't work.

That's not to say that self-help programs don't work for anyone. They may well work for many people. But the great difference between them and 12-Step programs is that the latter are based entirely upon a spiritual approach to recovery. By very definition, recovery in a 12-Step program cannot come about through self-help. In fact, it can only come about by abandoning any notion of self-help.

But the self-help movement is a powerful enough force that it can have an insidious influence on our individual Programs. How many of us have been to discussion meetings where the topic is a supposed "problem" which a member has, for which she is seeking a solution? How many of those meetings consist of "solutions" offered by other members which will feature all kinds of advice, or exhortations to apply one of more of Steps 1 through 9? And how rarely will a member point out that the very basis of a 12-Step program is to reach the point where we identify the creator of all these "problems" (ourselves), and start to practice a way of life where we cease to invent problems or attempt to find their solutions?

"Problems" arise when we insist on remaining the center of our universe, while bewailing the consequence that things don't turn out the way we want. Self-help programs treat these problems as real and insist that we have the wherewithal to solve them. If that works for some people, that's great; but if we are real alcoholics, addicts, overeaters etc. then only total surrender, followed by sincere and ongoing working of the last three Steps, will bring any lasting peace.