Why Recovery with the 12 steps?

Addicts are very untrusting people. We had to be. Most of our character defects were assets at one time. Lack of trust is one of those defect/assets. You see, at one time we had to be on guard 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We were doing things that were very illegal and our acquaintances were very rarely on the up and up. We had to be wary of everyone and everything. Most addicts will tell you that they have purchased what they thought to be drugs, but turned out to be candle wax, sheetrock, table salt, sugar, vitamin C, or even sometimes legitimate looking pharmaceuticals that were made out of nothing but filler. It is in our nature to be untrusting after being screwed over so many times by dealers. Unfortunately, dealers aren't the only ones out to get one over on you. Sometimes your fellow addict "friends" will try and hustle you. Sometimes an addict will take a friends dope then help the friend look for it because they think they lost it. Sometimes a friend will give you $40 to go get a bag and you always take a little off the top. We justify it by saying it costs me time and money to go get it. Of course they use that same line when they bring the dope back and talk the friend into giving them a little more after they have taken their cut off the top already. The point is that we are untrusting.
When first trying to get clean addicts will not want to believe what these strange people in a 12 step meeting are saying. "You never have to use again" or "I have been clean for X number of years" are common things heard that an addict just can't fathom. I know I couldn't. I could not keep from using for a few hours, much less decades. How is it possible for people to quit dope. The 12 steps are definitely a viable way to get clean, stay clean, and live a life that one can be proud of.
My first introduction to the 12 steps was around 2001. I didn't actually get clean till 2002 but, something stuck out to me in that first meeting. The first thing is that people came up to me and talked to me like I was a human being deserving of actual conversation. The second thing was that these people cared and told me to keep coming back. No one wants an addict to be around them yet these people wanted me to come back.
As I kept coming back and finally stopped all use of drugs (including alcohol), I saw that the people that really had what I wanted all had a few things in common. They attended meetings regularly, they had a sponsor, they worked the 12 steps (over and over and over), and they did service work. My thinking was that if they are doing it and they are happy then maybe I can get that happiness they have by doing the same thing. That is exactly what I did.
If you would have asked me to paint you a picture of all I wanted out of life when I first got clean, I would have sold myself short of the actual life I eventually found. My expectations were exceeded 100 fold. Recovery does that. The way the steps work is quite interesting. At first the steps are about understanding your addiction and trying to arrest the things that keep you using, but after a while the steps are about nurturing the things that make you a better person. It took a long time to realize that the drugs were not the problem, they were the outward manifestation of the problem that lies inside of me. Addiction is not about substances, it is about the obsession and compulsion to change the way I feel by any means necessary. It is about the screwed up way my brain has been wired after years of drug use. It is about the survival skills I couldn't let go of after I didn't need to just survive anymore. Addiction is about all the things that keep me from reaching my full potential.
The 12 steps teach me about being a better person. Are there other ways to find recovery without the 12 steps? Sure there is! Do I believe the 12 steps are the best way? I sure do. To each their own, but why try something that hasn't been proven to work when there is something right here for free that we know works. Millions upon Millions have found recovery through the 12 steps. Today my life is a gift. It is a gift because I didn't earn it. It was freely given to me without any expectation of repayment. The only thing I have truly earned is a seat in a 12 step fellowship. I put in the blood sweat and tears to get that seat. Everything after that is a gift.

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. - Walter Anderson