Conflict of Law and Grace

If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly. (AA, pg 44-45)

This is one of the many flagrant contradiction in the "Big Book"

The whole thing is supposed to be spiritual, right? Yet at the same time, the Twelve Steps, in a sense, embodies a code, one which a man is expected to work.

The whole program stinks of Galatianism, mixing law and grace from beginning to end.
The whole affair is just shameful, inducing people who are desperate for help into a program which teaches them dependence and frustration as a way of life, with the admonition to "keep coming back" because if the program is not working, it must be because the people working the program are not working it hard enough.

Of course, the race-track of trying to keep the law turns into a rat-like treadmill in which well-intentioned men and women crash and burn from exhaustion or exasperation.

"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Galatians 2: 16)

Faith has nothing to do with our works, but our believing on Christ and His Finished Work. Better than a code of rules and regulations:

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8: 2)

We are called to a higher law, prompted by the Spirit of God, better than Twelve Steps or even the Ten Commandments!