From the "12 Step and 12 Tradition" book:

"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him"

  "Practicing Step 3 is like the opening of a door which to all appearance is still closed and locked. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness... In the first two Steps we were engaged in reflection. We saw taht we were powerless over alcohol, but we also perceived that faith of some kind, if only in AA itself, is possible to anyone...

  "Like all the remaining Steps, Step 3 calls for affirmative action, for it is only by action that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked the entry of God - or if you like, a Higher Power - into our lives. Faith , to be sure , is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing. We can have faith, yet keep God our of our lives. Therefore our problem now becomes just how and by what specific means shall we be able to let Him in? ...

  "to every worldly and practical-minded beginner, this Step looks hard, even impossible... A beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed. Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more. Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up the key of willingness...

  "But the moment our mental or emotional independence is in question, how differently we behave. How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act. Oh yes,, we'll weigh the pros and cons of every problem. We'll listen politely to those who would advise us, but all the decisions are to be ours alone. Nobody is going to meddle with our personal independence on such matters. Besides, we think there is no one that we can surely trust. We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world we live in. This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: how well does it actually work? One good look in the mirror ought to be answer enough for any alcoholic...

  "Should his own image in the mirror be too awful to contemplate (and it usually is), he might first take a look at the results normal people are getting from self-sufficiency. Everywhere he sees people filled with anger and fear, society breaking up into warring fragments...

  "We realize that the word 'dependence' is as distasteful to many psychiatrists and psychologists as it is to alcoholics. Like our professional friends, we, too, are aware that there are wrong forms of dependence. We have experienced many of them. No adult man or woman, for example, should be in too much emotional dependence on a parent...

  "...the other Steps of the AA program can be practiced with success only when Step 3 is given a determined and persistent trial. This statement may surprise newcomers who have experienced nothing but constant deflation and a growing conviction that human will is of no value whatever...  But now it appears tht there are certain things which only the individual can do. All by himself, and in the light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of willingness. When he acquires willingness, he is the only one who can make the decision to exert himself. Trying to do this is an act of his own will. All of the 12 Steps require sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and so, we trust, to God's will...

  "It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly. To all of us, this was a most wonderful revelation. Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us. To make this increasingly possible is the purpose of AA's 12 Steps, and Step 3 opens the door..."