Steps

 Recovery from addiction has a program of steps, 12 of them.  You work those steps on a gradual basis, but daily, and you shed an old self destructive you, to find a much better person there all the time you were partying and hiding from this Self.  The meditative life has not steps, but yearnings.  For what ever reason you begin to hunger for something deeper, other, than the daily fair of active living, or active living with no depth.  As you practice a meditation on a daily basis, like the addict does the steps, you begin to yearn to be taken deeper and deeper.  In both the steps and yearnings, it will not be your own power that takes you to new self discovering, but rather a Power, Energy, Spirit, Love, that cooperates with your efforts.  Then you will find you, the wonder and joy of you as you were made before you tried to become self-made and self-destructive.