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To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.
help everyone to better understand the alcoholic.
theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic,
one alcoholic could affect another as no nonalcoholic could.
strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery.
not a religious organization. Neither does A.A. take any particular medical point of view,
the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind.
any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.
theory that we have an allergy to alcohol
an alcoholic ought to be freed from his physical craving for liquor, and this often requires a definite hospital procedure, before psychological measures can be of maximum benefit.
These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all;
In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.
To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.
they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he gives all that is in him, it often is not enough. One feels that something more than human power is needed
make many resolutions, but never a decision.
There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that
he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking.
There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he c...
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They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.
All these, and many others, have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving.
The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.
The remonstrances of my friends terminated in a row and I became a lone wolf.
As the whisky rose to my head I told myself I would manage better next time, but I might as well get good and drunk then. And I did.
The remorse, horror and hopelessness of the next morning are unforgettable.
I met a kind doctor who explained that though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill, bodily and mentally.
alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects.
I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a
cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work. Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlay all. How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitation. But that was as far as I had gone.
With ministers, and the world’s religions, I parted right there. When they talked of a God personal to me, who was love, superhuman strength and direction, I became irritated and my mind snapped shut against such a theory. To Christ I conceded the certainty of a great man, not to closely followed by those who claimed Him. His moral teaching–most excellent. For myself, I had adopted those parts which seemed convenient and not too difficult; the rest I disregarded.
The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick. I honestly doubted whether, on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good. Judging from what I had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest. If there was a Devil, he seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me.
my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized. He was on a different footing. His roots grasped a new soil.
Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirements.
It meant destruction of self-centeredness.
revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric.
An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. Our struggles with them are variously strenuous, comic, and tragic.
We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table.
If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and
no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness,
this volume will inform and comfort those who are, or who may be affected.
the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours.
he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured–these
He may be one of the finest fellows in the world. Yet let him drink for a day, and he frequently becomes disgustingly, and even dangerously anti-social.
He is often perfectly sensible and well balanced concerning everything except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish.
If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic’s drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can’t feel the ache.
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...
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At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.
