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From the books ... Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12 & 12)
Click the page number or the book cover icon
to view that page in the literature.1.
2.
3.
4.
Following his physical
rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly
stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the "will power" to resist the impulse to drink.
5.
6.
7.
He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or
may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of
his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.
8.
If hundreds of experiences have shown him
that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and
humiliation, why is it he
takes that one drink?
9.
10.
11.
12.
What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic
who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of
the first drink?
13.
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.
14.
15.
They had said that though I
did raise a defense, it
would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink.
16.
17.
18.
Admit that he probably knows more about it than you do,
but call to his attention
the fact that however deep his
faith and knowledge, he
could not have applied it or he would not drink.
19.
20.
21.
In a weak moment he may take your dislike of his high-stepping friends as one of those insanely trivial excuses to drink.
22.
Here, for instance, is a typical example: An officer of one of the largest banking institutions in America
knows I no longer drink.
23.
You might say you appreciate his abilities, would like to keep him, but cannot if he continues to drink.
24.
He will appreciate knowing you are not bothering your head about him,
that you are not suspicious nor are you trying to run his life so he will be shielded from temptation to drink.
25.
26.
27.
28.
It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the
habit of showing when you
were getting another drink.
29.
30.
Everybody was scared witless that something or
somebody would capsize
the boat and dump us all back into the drink.
31.
They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon
of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the
important appointment was not met.
32.
To be gravely affected,
one does not necessarily
have to drink a long time nor take
the quantities some of us have.
33.
34.
35.
After they have succumbed
to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon
of craving develops, they
pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with
a firm resolution not to
drink again.
36.
Let him tell you about it: "I was
much impressed with what
you fellows said about alcoholism, and I frankly
did not believe it would be possible for me to drink again.
37.
I now remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me, how they prophesied
that if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come -- I would drink again.
38.
39.
40.
41.
If he temporizes and still thinks he can ever drink again, even beer, he might as well be discharged after the next bender which, if an alcoholic, he is almost certain to have.
42.
43.
I think I must have been thoroughly scared by what
had happened, or by the doctor, or probably both, so that I did not touch a
drink again until the country went dry.
44.
45.
I could drink all I wanted of
that.
46.
A.A.'s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in
their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.
47.
48.
I used to get terribly upset when I saw my friends drink and knew I could not, but I schooled myself to believe that though I once had the same privilege, I had abused it
so frightfully that it was withdrawn.
49.
50.
Out of this alloy of drink and speculation, I commenced to forge the weapon that one day would turn in its flight like a boomerang and all but
cut me to ribbons.
51.
52.
When our drinking had become much worse, money was only an urgent requirement which
could supply us with the next
drink and the temporary comfort of oblivion it brought.
53.
We thought "conditions"
drove us to drink, and when we
tried to correct these conditions and found that we
couldn't to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics.
54.
55.
56.
We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for
months or years, he reacts much like other men.
57.
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.
58.
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.
59.
They wanted to say that liquor should be enjoyed, not
misused; hard drinkers ought to slow down, and problem drinkers -- alcoholics -- should not drink at all.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day.
65.
I rather appreciated
your ideas about the subtle
insanity which precedes
the first drink, but I was confident it could not happen to me after what I had learned.
66.
Of course he couldn't drink,
but why not sit hopefully at a table, a bottle of ginger ale before him?
67.
We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of
casually, there was little
serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation
of what the terrific consequences might be.
68.
69.
70.
Yet let him drink for a day, and he frequently becomes disgustingly, and even dangerously anti-social.
71.
72.
Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of
drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him.
73.
We must lose our fear of creditors no matter how far we have to go, for we are liable to drink if we are afraid to face them.
74.
How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?"
75.
And with us, to drink is to die.
76.
Compared to this prospect, the ten thousand dollars under consideration
wasn't much, but like the alcoholic's first drink it would, if taken, inevitably set up a disastrous chain reaction.
77.
78.
If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to
him.
79.
Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been
characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could
drink like other people.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
If hundreds of experiences have shown him
that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and
humiliation, why is it he
takes that one drink?
86.
87.
88.
But when he gets over the spree, he begins to think once more how he can drink moderately next time.
89.
90.
91.
I was between Scylla and Charybdis now, because if I did not drink my stomach tortured me, and if
I did my nerves did the same
thing.
92.
93.
I used to promise my wife, my friends, and my children that I would drink no more -- promises which seldom kept me sober even through the day, though I was very sincere when I made them.
94.
Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally.
95.
Six months earlier, the broker had been
relieved of his drink obsession by a sudden spiritual experience, following a meeting with an
alcoholic friend who had
been in contact with the Oxford Groups of that day.
96.
97.
98.
Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has
already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not.
99.
Show him, from your own experience, how the queer mental condition surrounding that first
drink prevents normal functioning of the
will power.
100.
101.
102.
103.
I have not had a drink since.
104.
He has not had a drink since.
105.
He hasn't had a drink since.
106.
And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea
why he took that first drink than you have.
107.
108.
I pointed out that I had had
nothing to drink whatever for three years, and this in the face of difficulties that would have made nine out
of ten men drink their heads off.
109.
These observations would be academic and pointless if
our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion.
110.
111.
But when I became willing
to clean house and then asked a Higher Power, God as I understood Him, to give me release, my obsession to
drink vanished.
112.
This does not mean that we expect all our character defects to be lifted out of us as the drive to drink was.
113.
114.
People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we
must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at
all.
115.
116.
I pointed out that I had had
nothing to drink whatever for three years, and this in the face of difficulties that would have made nine out
of ten men drink their heads off.
117.
Most of the time, therefore, I did not take the
morning drink which I craved so badly, but instead would fill up on large doses of sedatives to quiet the jitters, which distressed me terribly.
118.
There is the type who always
believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger.
119.
120.
If you and your husband find
a solution for the pressing problem of drink you are, of course, going to be very happy.
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