It isn't until we hit bottom and come to the limits of self-reliance that we learn to depend on God. We will probably not even really know God until we are forced to come to rely upon Him. We can count it a blessing when God allows us to encounter situations we cannot manage on our own so that we will have to come to trust and rely on Him.

At this point the ego has to go, and only powerlessness can do the job correctly. Paradoxically, if we try to change our ego ourselves, we will only have a better disguised ego. No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. As we work the steps, we become less and less self-reliant, and more and more dependent upon God. That is the beauty of powerlessness and brokenness. It leads us to the ego deflation and God dependency needed to solve our problem.