1)        Addicts have a hundred excuses why the drink, drug, etc, and a thousand resolutions to quit. Their first step toward recovery is realizing that their schemes for reform are hopeless, that they cannot just make up their minds to do better. They are caught in something more powerful than themselves.

           This is what AA/NA has usually meant by the disease concept of alcohol or drugs --- it is more of a metaphor than physiological explanation. To some, the metaphor suggests a claim that addicts are victims of circumstances and not responsible for their behavior. That apprehension is misplaced at least as far as the AA founders were concerned. They were saying, in fact, something very close to what theologians express in the language of sin.

           A person who sins does so because he is caught in a web of sin. How he got there he may not know, but he cannot escape on his own power, and his attempt to do so only catches him deeper in the web. So the conviction of sin --- not sins, but Sin, the underlying, inescapable power that leads to sins --- is necessary for anyone who would accept the grace of GOD.

           Similarly, an addict cannot escape their addiction. Until they recognize their helplessness, they will be unwilling or unable to turn outside themselves for the help they need. They may never know why they are an addict, but they remain responsible --- responsible to recognize their helplessness. This is a recognizably Christian idea.

2 & 3)  The spiritual roots of the Second and Third Steps are simply conversion. Sinners who have recognized their own hopelessness come to believe that GOD can rescue them and so turn their lives over to this GOD.  The prayer of surrender --- on your knees, inevitably --- was heavily stressed in the Oxford Group, and in the earliest AA meetings.

             The root is twisted a bit, however, with the introduction of "GOD as we understand Him." This language came from the Oxford Group. Shoemaker user it to indicate an openness to people in process. He encouraged honest seekers to "surrender as much of ourselves as we can to as much of Christ as we understand."

             For AA/NA, however, the term became more accurately a statement of religious pluralism.  As historian Ernest Kurtz writes, "The briefest statement of the fundamental, primitive Christian messages runs: 'Jesus saves.' The Higher Power is often, for the irreligious, simply the AA/NA group.

            "GOD as we understand Him" allows room for seekers --- but it also leaves room for those who prefer to define GOD, rather than to allow Him to define them. It is a profoundly ambivalent expression.

            According to Bill Wilson, addicts came from so many religious persuasions and were so cantankerous, they simply would not assent to any statement of orthodoxy. If you wanted to help them, you simply had to leave room for their independence. However, there is ample reason to think that Bill Wilson himself was the leading independent and cantankerous addict. Though he was close to Christians for the rest of his life, he never could reconcile himself to any orthodox expression of faith.