The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

by Alcoholics Anonymous

ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor — becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention.

He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is seldom mildly intoxicated.

He often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes, and has a promising career ahead of him. He uses his gifts to build up a bright outlook for his family and himself, and then pulls the structure down on his head by a senseless series of sprees.

Then he begins to appear at hospitals and sanitariums.

suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink? Why can’t he stay on the water wagon? What has become of the common sense and will power that he still sometimes displays with respect to other matters?

Opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts differently from normal people. We are not sure why, once a certain point is reached,

These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the

alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.

They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can

feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk.

Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time. But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it.

There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game. But they often suspect they are down for the count.

How true this is, few realize. In a vague way their families and friends sense that these drinkers are abnormal, but everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will. The tragic truth is that if the man be a rea...

We are without defense against the first drink.

universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.

accept spiritual help. This [1] Fully explained — Appendix II (Spiritual Experiences) Page 26 we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort.

(the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung)

Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol.

In the doctor’s judgment he was utterly hopeless; he could never regain his position in society and he would have to place himself under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected to live long.

He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go Page 27 without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude.

experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.

[2] For amplification — see Appendix II (Spiritual Experiences) Page 28

reed,

“a design for living” that really works.

American psychologist, William James, in his book “Varieties of Religious Experience,” indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God. We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

Page 29 enough, we find such convictions no great obstacle to a spiritual experience. Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered.

will see these pages, and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, “Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing.”

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery.

that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real a...

which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet.

accepting voluntary commitment to asylums — we could increase the list ad infinitum.

Try it Page 32 more than once. It will not take long for you to decide, if you are honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of jitters if you get a full knowledge of your condition.

Once he started, he had no control whatever.

Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has — that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men.

“Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever.

If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.

the peculiar mental twist

Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years.

this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish.

the crux of the problem. What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink? Friends

He did no drinking until he was thirty-five.

To his consternation, he found himself drunk half a dozen times in rapid succession. On

Page 36 Yet he got drunk again. We asked him to tell us exactly how it happened. This is his story: “I came to work on Tuesday morning.

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plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion,

But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink.

Our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jay-walking.

Up to this point you would label him as a foolish Page 38 chap having queer ideas of fun. Luck then deserts him and he is slightly injured several times in succession.