There Is A Solution

"How many time people have said to us: “I can take it or leave it alone.  Why can’t he?” “Why don’t you drink like a gentleman or quit?” “That fellow can’t handle his liquor.” “Why don’t you try beer and wine?” “Lay off the hard stuff.” “His will power must be weak.” “He could stop if he wanted to.” “She’s such a sweet girl, I should think he’d stop for her sake.” “The doctor told him that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up again.”

Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.

Then we have a certain type of hard drinker.  He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally.  It may cause him to die a few years before his time.  If a sufficiently strong reason—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.  

But what about the real alcoholic? 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.

Here is a fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control.  He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking.  He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  He is seldom mildly intoxicated.  He is always more or less insanely drunk.  His disposition while drinking resembles his normal nature but little.  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 has a positive genius for getting tight at exactly the wrong moment, particularly when some important decision must be made or engagement kept.  He is often perfectly sensible and well balanced concerning everything except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish.  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.  He is the fellow who goes to bed so intoxicated he ought to sleep the clock around. Yet early next morning he searches madly for the bottle he misplace the night before.  If he can afford it, he may have liquor concealed all over his house to be certain no one gets his entire supply away from him to throw down the wastepipe.  As matters grow worse, he begins to use a combination of high powered sedative and liquor to quiet his nerves so he can go to work. Then comes the day when he simply cannot make it and gets drunk all over again. Perhaps he goes to a doctor who gives him morphine or some sedative with which to taper off.  Then he begins to appear at hospitals and sanitariums.  

This is by no means a comprehensive picture of the true alcoholic, as our behavior patterns vary.  But this description should identify him roughly.  

Perhaps there never will be a full answer to these questions.  Opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts differently from normal people.  We are not sure why, once a certain point is reached, little can be done for him.  We cannot answer the riddle.

We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men.  We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop.  The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.  

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

Once in a while he may tell the truth.  And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have.  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.  Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot.  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 real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive.  He has lost control.  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.  

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink.  Our so called will power becomes practically nonexistent.  We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people.  There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove.  

The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, “It won’t burn me this time, so here’s how!” Or perhaps he doesn’t think at all.  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?” Only to have that thought supplanted by “Well, I’ll stop with the sixth drink.” Or “What’s the use anyhow?”

When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked up, may die or to permanently insane.  These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcoholics throughout history.  But for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations.  So many want to stop but cannot.  

There is a solution.  Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.  But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.  When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at out feet.  We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed. 

The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s 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.  He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.

If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.  This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort."

From the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, "There Is A Solution."

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Read the true personal story of Bill W., The Cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous

Bill's Story

Bill W. Alcoholic