Rock Bottom Required?

Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. ~ AA World Services Inc. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (p. 24).  [Much of the poem quotes further in the paragraph.]

Who would want yo work these Steps?
Who wishes to be rigorously honest,
tolerant of all we meet?
Who wants to confess his faults
to another and make restitution
for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power,
let alone meditation and prayer?
Who wants to sacrifice time and energy
in trying to carry A.A.’ s message
to the next sufferer?
Who has become so thoroughly convinced
he is powerless over addiction,
his life so totally unmanageable
that he would dare to be the one who cared
so much as to do all this despite the discomfort
inherent in honestly and earnestly
working these Twelve Steps?