Why Higher Powers Are Needed in 12 Step Programs

I've always been curious why 12 step programs include #2: "recognizing a greater power that can give strength."

Today I read a blog on slate titled "Buy Local, Act Evil" by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow that got me thinking.

A study showed that those who felt they had acted virtuously were less generous and more likely to cheat.

So if you have achieved 30 days of something you're trying to achieve - fitness, sobriety, whatever, the automatic human response is a desire to celebrate that, to cut yourself some slack. In the case of sobriety, if you're still around the people you used with before, you'll most likely use again.

If instead a higher power such as God is able to get you through, but it's out of your hands (steps 2 & 1) then you've no longer accomplished anything, so there's no moral or spiritual currency to spend, so to speak. If I didn't earn the sobriety then I haven't earned any slack.

Perhaps step 2 is included because it makes success more likely due to human psychology. Of course, theists have an additional reason.