"This lack of anchorage to any permanent values, this blindness to the
true purpose of our lives, produced another bad result. For just so
long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own
individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working
faith in a Higher Power impossible. This was true even when we believed
that God existed. We could actually have earnest religious beliefs
which remained barren because we were still trying to play God
ourselves. As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance
upon a Higher Power was out of the question. That basis ingredient of
all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing." (Twelve
and Twelve, Step Seven, pg. 72)