SELF-DISCIPLINE

I was at a meeting last night and the topic was self discipline. Although I know that this is a very important quality for anyone trying to live a productive life, I felt uncomfortable with the way that everyone was praising it as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Let me see if I can explain my concerns over this to you here.
To be in recovery (or any form of self-improvement), there is a lot of personal change involved. There are many different tools that one would normally use to affect a change in themselves. Self-discipline is certainly one of them, but I fear that it is a tool that can be problematic if used too extensively. It should be something that you turn to when you need a little extra support, but not a crutch to lean upon to maintain control of your new way of living.
That‘s what I feel is the biggest problem with self-discipline - control (especially self-control). Recovery is based on the fact that one is powerless over their self-destructive behavior (it can’t be self-controlled) For example an alcoholic has to understand that there is no way that he can ever dink successfully (with control). This understanding has to carry on to his recovery in the sense that he can’t abstain from drinking by himself either (he can‘t control his abstinence alone). That leads to another big part of recovery - surrender. One must surrender to the fact that this change can not be won by trying to exercise more control over the control of the self-destructive behavior. Change must come from looking outside of this self-defeating solution. One has to turn towards help outside of themselves (meetings, fellowship, sponsor, higher power). Self-destructive behavior is described in AA as a “self-imposed crisis”, it would seem then that it can’t be solved by a self-imposed solution.
To me self-discipline is more like training wheels that eventually have to be removed if one is truly founded in a new way of living. These training wheels are very important in early recovery, because one doesn’t really have any other tools to use yet. People are told to just follow suggestions and don’t think too much. New thinking, attitudes, and behaviors come later after discipline forces one to enter into new actions and continue to practice them.
This does not mean that self-discipline should never be needed once one is well on their way towards new living, since no one can be perfect in how well they do their recovery. The goal should be to hopefully have less need for it. Over time, as new thinking, attitudes, and behaviors become natural in one’s new life, it should be needed less for support.