|
A
L C O H O L I C S A
N O N Y M O U S Published
by: Works
Publishing Co., 17
Williams St., Newark,
N. J. ------------------------------- INDEX |
FOREWORD
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE
DOCTOR'S OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER
1
BILL'S
STORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1
CHAPTER
2
THERE
IS A SOLUTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 8
CHAPTER
3
MORE
ABOUT ALCOHOLISM . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 14
CHAPTER
4
WE
AGNOSTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . 20
CHAPTER
5
HOW
IT WORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . 26
CHAPTER
6
INTO
ACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 33
CHAPTER
7
WORKING
WITH OTHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 41
CHAPTER
8
TO
WIVES .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
48
CHAPTER
9
THE
FAMILY AFTERWARD . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 56
CHAPTER
10
TO
EMPLOYERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . 62
CHAPTER
11
A
VISION FOR YOU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
THE
ALCOHOLIC FOUNDATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-------------------------------
FOREWORD
We,
of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have
recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other
alcoholics PRECISELY HOW THEY CAN RECOVER is the main purpose of this book. For
them, we think these pages will prove so convincing that no further
authentication will be necessary. We hope this account of our experiences will
help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not yet comprehend
that he is a very sick person. And besides, we are sure that our new way of
living has its advantages for all.
It
is important that we remain anonymous because we are too few, at present, to
handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which will result from this
publication. Being mostly business or professional folk we could not well carry
on our occupations in such an event. We would like it clearly understood that
our alcoholic work is an avocation only, so that when writing or speaking
publicly about alcoholism, we urge each of our Fellowship to omit his personal
name, designating himself instead as "A Member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
"
Very
earnestly we ask the press also, to observe this
request, for otherwise we shall be greatly
handicapped.
We
are not an organization in the conventional sense of the word. There are no
fees nor dues whatsoever. The only requirement for membership is an honest
desire to stop drinking. We are not allied with any particular faith, sect or
denomination, nor do we oppose anyone. We simply wish to be helpful to those
who are afflicted.
We
shall be interested to hear from those who are getting results from this book,
particularly from those who have commenced work with other alcoholics. We shall
try to contact such cases.
Inquiry
by scientific, medical and religious societies will be welcomed.
(This
multilith volume will be sent upon receipt of $3.50, and the printed book will
be mailed, at no additional cost, as soon as published. )
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
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1.
THE
DOCTOR'S OPINION
We
of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the
medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book. Convincing
testimony must surely come from medical men who have had experience with the
sufferings of our members and have witnessed our return to health. A well known doctor, chief physician at a nationally prominent
hospital specializing in alcoholic and drug addiction, gave Alcoholics
Anonymous this letter:
To
Whom It May Concern:
I
have specialized in the treatment of alcoholism for many years.
About
four years ago I attended a patient who, though he had been a competent business man of good earning capacity, was an alcoholic of a
type I had come to regard as hopeless.
In
the course of his third treatment he acquired certain
ideas concerning a possible means of recovery. As part of his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions to
other alcoholics, impressing upon them that they must do likewise with still
others. This has become the basis of a rapidly growing fellowship of these men
and their families. This man and over one hundred others appear to have
recovered.
I
personally know thirty of these cases who were of the type with whom other
methods had failed completely.
These
facts appear to be of extreme medical importance; because of the extraordinary
possibilities of rapid growth inherent in this group they mark a new epoch in
the annals of alcoholism. These men may well have a remedy for thousands of
such situations.
You
may rely absolutely on anything they say about themselves.
Very
truly yours,
(Signed)- - - - - M. D.
The
physician who, at our request, gave us this letter, has been kind enough to
enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows. In this statement he
confirms what anyone who has suffered alcoholic torture must believe — that the
body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It does not satisfy us
to be told that we cannot control our drinking just because we were maladjusted
to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental
defectives. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable
extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well.
In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which
leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.
The
doctor's theory that we have a kind of allergy to alcohol interests us. As
laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as
ex-alcoholics, we can say that his explanation makes good sense. It explains
many
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2.
things
for which we cannot otherwise account.
Though
we work out our solution on the spiritual plane, we favor hospitalization for
the alcoholic who is very jittery or befogged. More often than not, it is
imperative that a man's brain be cleared before he is approached, as he has then a better chance of understanding and accepting what
we have to offer.
The
doctor writes:
The
subject presented in this book seems to me to be of paramount importance to
those afflicted with alcoholic addiction.
I
say this after many years' experience as Medical
Director of one of the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcoholic and
drug addiction.
There
was, therefore, a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a
few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail in these pages.
We
doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of
urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application presented difficulties
beyond our conception. What with our ultra-modern
standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well
equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic knowledge.
About
four years ago one of the leading contributors to this book came under our care
in this hospital and while here he acquired some ideas which he put into
practical application at once.
Later,
he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to other patients
here and perhaps with some misgiving, we consented. The cases we have followed
through have been most interesting; in fact, many of them are amazing. The
unselfishness of these men as we have come to know them, the entire absence of
profit motive, and their community spirit, is indeed inspiring to one who has
labored long and wearily in this alcoholic field. They believe in themselves,
and still more in the Power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates
of death.
Of course 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.
We
believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these
chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of
craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate
drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all;
and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having
lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human,
their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
Frothy
emotional appeal seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these
alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals
must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives.
If
any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear
somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see
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3.
the
tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these
problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments,
and the most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this
movement. We feel, after many years of experience, that we have found nothing
which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the
community movement now growing up among them.
Men
and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.
The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot
after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic
life seems the only normal one. They are restless,
irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease
and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks — drinks which they see
others taking with impunity. 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. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can
experience an entire psychic change there is very
little hope of his recovery.
On
the other hand — and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand —
once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who
had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself
easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.
Men
have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal: "Doctor, I cannot
go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You
must help me!"
Faced
with this problem, 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 to produce the
essential psychic change. Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from
psychiatric effort is perhaps considerable, we physicians must admit we have
made little impression upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond
to the ordinary psychological approach.
I
do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a mental
condition. I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months
on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date,
favorably to them. 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. These men were not drinking to
escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
There
are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause
men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight.
The
classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is
outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the constitutional
psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type.
They are always "going on the wagon for keeps. " They are
over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.
Then
there are those who are never properly adjusted to life, who are the so-called
neurotics. The prognosis of this type is unfavorable.
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4.
There
is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He
plans various ways of drinking. He
changes his brand or his environment. 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. There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the
least understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be
written.
Then
there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol
has upon them. 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. This phenomenon, as we have
suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these
people, sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any
treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief
we have to suggest is entire abstinence.
This
immediately precipitates us into a seething caldron of debate. Much has been
written pro and con, but among physicians, the general
opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed.
What
is the solution? Perhaps I can best answer this by relating
an experience of two years ago.
About
one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for
chronic alcoholism. He had but partially recovered
from a gastric hemorrage and seemed to be a case of
pathological mental deterioration. He had lost everything worth
while in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly
admitted and believed that for him there was no hope. Following the elimination
of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent brain injury. He accepted the
plan outlined in this book. One year later he called to see me, and I
experienced a very strange sensation. I knew the man by name, and partly
recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended. From a trembling,
despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance
and contentment. I talked with him for some time, but
was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before. To me he was
a stranger, and so he left me. More than three years have now passed with no
return to alcohol.
When
I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York City. The patient had made
his own diagnosis, and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a
deserted barn determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party, and, in
desperate condition, brought to me. 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.
His
alcoholic problem was so complex, and his depression so great, that we
felt his only hope would be through what
we then called "moral psychology", and we doubted if even that would
have any effect.
However,
he did become "sold" on the ideas contained in this book. He has not
had a drink for more than three years. I see him now and then and he is as fine
a specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet.
I
earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through, and though perhaps
he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.
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1.
Chapter
One
BILL'S
STORY
War
fever ran high in the New England town to which we new, young officers from
Plattsburg were assigned, and we were flattered when the first citizens took us
to their homes, making us feel heroic. Here was love, applause, war; moments
sublime with hilarious intervals. I was part of life at last, and in the midst
of the excitement I discovered liquor. I forgot the strong warnings and the
prejudices of my people concerning drink. In time we sailed for "Over
There". I was very lonely and again turned to alcohol.
We
landed in England. I visited Winchester Cathedral. Much
moved, I wandered outside. My attention was caught by a doggerel on an
old tombstone:
"Here
lies a Hampshire Grenadier
Who
caught his death
Drinking
cold small beer
A
good soldier is ne'er forgot
Whether
he dieth by musket
Or
by pot. "
Ominous
warning — which I failed to heed.
Twenty-two, and a veteran of foreign wars, I
went home at last. I fancied myself a leader, for had not the men of my battery
given me a special token of appreciation? My talent for leadership, I imagined,
would place me at the head of vast enterprises which I would manage with utmost
assurance.
I
took a night law course, and obtained employment as
investigator for a surety company. The drive for success was on. I'd prove to
the world I was important. My work took me about Wall Street and little by
little I became interested in the market. Many people lost money — but some became
very rich. Why not I? I studied
economics and business as well as law. Potential alcoholic that I was, I nearly
failed my law course. At one of the finals I was too
drunk to think or write. Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it
disturbed my wife. We had long talks when I would still her forebodings by
telling her that men of genius conceived their best projects when drunk; that
the most majestic constructions of philosophic thought were so derived.
By
the time I had completed the course, I knew the law was not for me. The
inviting maelstrom of Wall Street had me in its grip. Business and financial
leaders were my heroes. 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. Living modestly, my wife and I saved $1, 000. It
went into certain securities then cheap and rather unpopular. I rightly
imagined that they would some day have a
great rise. I failed to persuade my broker friends to send me out looking over
factories and managements, but my wife and I decided to go anyway. I had
developed a theory that most people lost money in stocks through ignorance of
markets. I discovered many more reasons later on.
We
gave up our positions and off we roared on a motorcycle, the sidecar stuffed
with tent, blankets, change of clothes, and three huge volumes of a financial
reference service. Our friends thought a lunacy commission should be appointed.
Perhaps
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2.
they
were right. I had had some success at speculation, so we had a little money,
but we once worked on a farm for a month to avoid drawing on our small capital.
That was the last honest manual labor on my part for many a day. We covered the
the whole eastern United States in a year. At the end
of it, my reports to Wall Street procured me a position there and the use of a
large expense account. The exercise of an option brought in more money, leaving
us with a profit of several thousand dollars for that year.
For
the next few years fortune threw money and applause my way. I had arrived. My
judgment and ideas were followed by many to the tune of paper millions. The
great boom of the late twenties was seething and swelling. Drink
was taking an important and exhilarating part in my life. There was loud talk
in the jazz places uptown. Everyone spent in thousands and chattered in
millions. Scoffers could scoff and be damned. I made a host of fair-weather
friends.
My
drinking assumed more serious proportions, continuing all day and almost every
night. The remonstrances of my friends terminated in a row and I become a lone
wolf. There were many unhappy scenes in our sumptuous apartment. There had been
no real infidelity, for loyalty to my wife, helped at times by extreme
drunkenness, kept me out of those scrapes.
In
1929 I contracted golf fever. We went at once to the country, my wife to
applaud while I started out to overtake Walter Hagen. Liquor caught up with me
much faster than I came up behind Walter. I began to
be jittery in the morning. Golf permitted drinking every day and every night.
It was fun to carom around the exclusive course which had inspired such awe in
me as a lad. I acquired the impeccable coat of tan one sees upon the
well-to-do. The local banker watched me whirl fat checks in and our of his till with amused skepticism.
Abruptly
in October 1929 hell broke loose on the New York stock exchange. After one of
those days of inferno, I wobbled from a hotel bar to a brokerage office. It was
eight o'clock — five hours after the market closed. The ticker still clattered.
I was staring at an inch of the tape which bore the inscription PKF-32. It had
been 52 that morning. I was finished and so were many friends. The papers
reported men jumping to death from the towers of High Finance. That disgusted
me. I would not jump. I went back to the bar. My friends had dropped several
million since ten oclock — so what? Tomorrow was
another day. As I drank, the old fierce determination to win came back.
Next
morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal. He had plenty of money left and
thought I had better go to Canada. By the following spring we were living in
our accustomed to style. I felt like Napoleon returning
from Elba. No St. Helena for me! But drinking caught up with me again and my
generous friend had to let me go. This time we stayed broke.
We
went to live with my wife's parents. I found a job; then lost it as the result
of a brawl with a taxi driver. Mercifully, no one could guess that I was to
have no real employment for five years, or hardly draw
a sober breath. My wife began to work in a department store, coming home
exhausted to find me drunk. I became an unwelcome hanger-on at brokerage
places.
Liquor
ceased to be a luxury; it became a necessity. "Bathtub" gin, two
bottles a day, and often three, got to be routine. Sometimes a small deal would
net a few hundred dollars, and I would pay my bills at the bars and
delicatessens. This went on endlessly, and I began to waken very early in the
morning shaking violently. A tumbler full of gin followed by half a dozen
bottles of beer would be required if I were to eat any breakfast. Nevertheless,
I still thought I could control the situation, and there were periods of
sobriety which renewed my wife's hope.
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3.
Gradually
things got worse. The house was taken over by the mortgage holder, my
mother-in-law died, my wife and father-in-law became ill.
Then
I got a promising business opportunity. Stocks were at the low point of 1932,
and I had somehow formed a group to buy. I was to share generously in the
profits. Then I went on a prodigious bender, and that chance vanished.
I
woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw I could not take so much as one drink. I
was through forever. Before then, I had written lots of sweet promises, but my
wife happily observed that this time I meant business. And so
I did.
Shortly
afterward I came home drunk. There had been no fight. Where had been my high resolve? I simply didn't know. It hadn't even
come to mind. Someone had pushed a drink my way, and I had taken it. Was I
crazy? I began to wonder, for such an appalling lacks of
perspective seemed near being just that.
Renewing
my resolve, I tried again. Some time passed, and confidence began to be
replaced by cocksureness. I could laugh at the gin mills. Now I had what it
takes! One day I walked into a cafe to telephone. In no time I was beating on
the bar asking myself how it happened. As the whiskey 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. The
courage to do battle was not there. My brain raced
uncontrollably and there was a terrible sense of impending calamity. I hardly
dared cross the street, lest I collapse and be run down by an early morning
truck, for it was scarcely daylight. An all night
place supplied me with a dozen glasses of ale. My writhing nerves were stilled
at last. A morning paper told me the market had gone to hell again. Well, so
had I. The market would recover, but I wouldn't. That was a hard thought.
Should I kill myself? No — not now. Then a mental fog settled down. Gin would
fix that. So two bottles, and — oblivion.
The
mind and body are marvelous mechanisms, for mine endured this agony for two
more years. Sometimes I stole from my wife's slender purse when the morning
terror and madness were on me. Again I swayed dizzily
before an open window, or the medicine cabinet, where there was poison, cursing
myself for a weakling. There were flights from city to country and back, as my
wife and I sought escape. Then came the night when the physical and mental torture
was so hellish I feared I would burst through my window, sash and all. Somehow
I managed to drag my mattress to a lower floor, lest I suddenly leap. A doctor
came with a heavy sedative. Next day found me drinking
both gin and sedative. This combination soon landed me on the rocks. People
feared for my sanity. So did I. I could eat little or
nothing when drinking, and I was forty pounds under weight.
My
brother-in-law is a physician, and through his kindness I was placed in a nationally-known hospital for the mental and physical
rehabilitation of alcoholics. Under the
so-called belladonna treatment my brain cleared. Hydrotherapy and mild exercise
helped much. Best of all, I met a kind doctor who explained that though
certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill, bodily and mentally.
It
relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened
when it comes to combatting liquor, though It often remains strong in other
respects. My incredible behavior in the face of a desparate
desire to stop was explained. Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high
hope. For three or four months the goose hung high. I went to town regularly
and even made a little money. Surely this was the answer — self-knowledge.
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4.
But
it was not, for the frightful day came when I drank once more. The curve of my
declining moral and bodily health fell off like a ski-jump. After a time I returned to the hospital. This was the finish, the
curtain, it seemed to me. My weary and despairing wife was informed that it
would all end with heart failure during delirium tremens, or I would develop a
wet brain, perhaps within a year. She would soon have to give me over to the
undertaker, or the asylum.
They
did not need to tell me. I knew, and almost welcomed
the idea. It was a devastating blow to my pride. I, who had thought so well of
myself and my abilities, of my capacity to surmount obstacles, was cornered at
last. Now I was to plunge into the dark, joining that endless procession of sots
who had gone on before. I thought of my poor wife. There had been much
happiness after all. What would I not give to make amends. But that was over
now.
No
words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of
self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match.
I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.
Trembling,
I stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came
the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice Day 1934, I was
off again. Everyone became resigned to the certainty that I would have to be
shut up somewhere, or would stumble along to a
miserable end. How dark it is before the dawn! In reality that was the
beginning of my last debauch. I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to
call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and
usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.
Near
the end of that bleak November, I sat drinking in my kitchen. With a
certain satisfaction I reflected there
was enough gin concealed about the house to carry me through that night and the
next day. My wife was at work. I wondered whether I dared hide a full bottle of
gin near the head of our bed. I would need it before daylight.
My
musing was interrupted by the telephone. The cheery voice of an old school friend asked if he might come over. He was
sober. It was years since I could remember
his coming to New York in that condition. I was amazed. Rumor had it
that he had been committed for alcoholic
insanity. I wondered how he had escaped. Of course he would have dinner, and then I could drink openly
with him. Unmindful of his welfare, I thought only of recapturing the spirit of
other days. There was that time we had chartered an airplane to complete a jag!
His coming was an oasis in this drear desert of futility. The very thing — an
oasis! Drinkers are like that.
The
door opened and he stood there, fresh-skinned and glowing. There was
something about his eyes. He was
inexplicably different. What had happened?
I
pushed a drink across the table. He refused it. Disappointed but curious, I
wondered what had got into the fellow. He wasn't himself.
"Come,
what's all this about?" I queried.
He
looked straight at me. Simply, but smilingly, he said, "I've got religion.
"
I
was aghast. So that was it — last summer an alcoholic crackpot; now, I
suspected, a little cracked about religion. He had that starry-eyed look. Yes,
the old boy was on fire all right. But bless his heart, let him rant! Besides,
my gin would last longer than his preaching.
But
he did no ranting. In a matter of fact way he told how
two men had appeared
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Page
5.
in
court, persuading the judge to suspend his commitment. They had told of a
simple religious idea and a practical program of action. That was two months
ago and the result was self evident. It worked!
He
had come to pass his experience along to me — if I cared to have it. I was shocked, but interested. Certainly
I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless.
He
talked for hours. Childhood memories rose before me. I could almost hear the
sound of the preacher's voice as I sat, on still Sundays, way over there on the
hillside; there was that proffered temperance pledge I never signed; my
grandfather good natured contempt of some church folk and their doings; his
insistence that the spheres really had their music; but his denial of the
preacher's right to tell him how he must listen; his fearlessness as he spoke
of these things just before he died; these recollections welled up from the
past. They made me swallow hard.
That
war-time day in old Winchester Cathedral came back again.
I
had always believed in a power greater than myself. I had often pondered these
things. 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 too 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.
But
my friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration that God had
done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society
was about to lock him up. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he
had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap
to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!
Had
this power originated in him? Obviously it had not. There had been no more
power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all.
That
floored me. It began to look as though religious people were right after all. Here was something at work in a human heart which had done
the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then.
Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen
table. He shouted great tidings.
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6.
I
saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized. He was on a
different footing. His roots grasped a new soil.
Thus
was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans, when we want Him enough.
At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from
my eyes. A new world came into view.
The
real significance of my experience in the Cathedral burst upon me. For a brief
moment, I had needed and wanted God. There had been a humble willingness to
have Him with me — and He came. But soon the sense of His presence had been
blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself.
And so it had been ever since. How blind I had been.
At
the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Treatment seemed
wise, for I showed signs of delirium tremens. I have not had a drink since.
There
I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He
would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted
for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I
ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take
them away, root and branch.
My school mate visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my
problems and deficiencies. We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment. I expressed my entire
willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong. Never was I to
be critical of them. I was to right all such matters to the utmost of my
ability.
I
was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. Common sense would
thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for
direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to
pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then
only might I expect to receive. But that would be in
great measure.
My
friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon
a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of
life which answered all my problems. 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.
Simple,
but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things
to the Father of Light who presides over us all.
These
were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them,
the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was
utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a
mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His
impact on me was sudden and profound.
For
a moment I was alarmed, and called my friend, the doctor, to ask if I were
still sane. He listened in wonder as I talked.
Finally he shook his head saying,
"Something has happened to you I don't understand. But you had better hang
on to it. Anything is better than the way you were. " The good doctor now
sees many men who have such experiences. He knows they are real.
While
I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands of hope-
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7.
less
alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given me. Perhaps
I could help some of them. They in turn might work with others.
My
friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of my demonstrating these
principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it
imperative to work with others, as he had worked with me. Faith without works
was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! For if an
alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and
self sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low
spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and it he drank,
he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like
that.
My
wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other
alcoholics to a solution of their problems. It was
fortunate, for my old business associates remained skeptical for a year and a
half, during which I found little work. I was not too well at the time, and was plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment.
This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink. I soon found that when all other
measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Many times I have gone to my old hospital in despair. On talking
to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet. It is a
design for living that works in rough going.
We
commenced to make many fast friends and a fellowship has grown up among us of
which it is a wonderful thing to feel a part. The joy of living we really have,
even under pressure and difficulty. I have seen one hundred families set their
feet in the path that really goes somewhere; have seem the most impossible
domestic situations righted; feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out. I
have seen men come out of asylums and resume a vital place in the lives of
their families and communities. Business and professional men have regained
their standing. There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery which has not
been overcome among us. In one Western city and its environs
there are eighty of us and our families. We meet frequently at our different
homes, so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. At these informal
gatherings one may often see from 40 to 80 persons. We are growing in numbers
and power.
An
alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. Our struggles with them are
variously strenuous, comic, and tragic. One poor chap committed suicide in my
home. He could not, or would not, see our way of life.
There
is, however, a vast amoung of fun about it all. I
suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just
underneath there is deadly earnestness. God has to work twenty-four hours a day
in and through us, or we perish.
Most
of us feel we need look no further for Utopia, nor even for Heaven. We have it
with us right here and now. Each day that simple talk in my kitchen multiplies
itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will to men.
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8.
Chapter
Two
THERE
IS A SOLUTION
We,
of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, know one hundred men who were once just as hopeless as
Bill. All have recovered. They have solved the drink problem.
We
are ordinary Americans. All sections of this country and many of its
occupations are represented, as well as many political, economic, social and
religious backgrounds. We are people who normally would not mix. But there
exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is
indescribably wonderful. 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. Unlike the feelings of the ship's
passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go
our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one
element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never
have held us together as we are now joined.
The
tremendous fact for every one of us that we have
discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely
agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is
the great news this book carries to those who suffer
alcoholism.
An
illness of this sort — and we have come to believe it an illness — involves
those about us in a way no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer all
are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic
illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the
sufferer's. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial
insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless
children, sad wives and parents — anyone can increase the list.
This
volume will inform, instruct and comfort those who are, or who may be affected.
They are many.
Highly
competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us (often fruitlessly, we are
afraid) find it almost impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his
situation without reserve. Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate
friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do
the psychiatrist and the doctor.
But
the ex-alcoholic who has found this solution, who is properly armed with
certain medical information, can generally win the entire confidence of another
alcoholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or
nothing can be accomplished.
That
the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he
obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at
the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that 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 are the conditions we have found necessary.
After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.
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9.
None
of us makes a vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be
increased if we did. We feel that elimination of the liquor problem is but a
beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us
in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs. All of us spend much of our
spare time in the sort of effort which we are going to
describe. A few are fortunate enough to be so situated that they can give
nearly all of their time to the work.
If
we keep on the way we are going there is little doubt that much good will
result, but the surface of the problem would hardly be scratched. Those of us
who live in large cities are overcome by the reflection that close by hundreds
are dropping into oblivion every day, Many could recover if they had the
opportunity we have enjoyed. How then shall we present that which has been so
freely given us?
We
have concluded to publish an anonymous volume setting forth the problem as we
see it. We shall bring to the task our combined experience and knowledge. This
ought to suggest a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem.
Of
necessity there will have to be discussion of matters medical, psychiatric,
social, and religious. We are aware that these matters are, from their very
nature, controversial. Nothing would
please us so much as to write a book which would contain no basis for
contention or argument. We shall do our utmost to achieve that ideal. Most of us sense that real tolerance of
other people's shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect for their opinions are
attitudes which make us more useful to others. Our very lives, as
ex-alcoholics, depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help
meet their needs.
You
may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us became so very ill
from drinking. Doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in the face
of expert opinion to the contrary, we
have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. If you are an
alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking — "What do I have to do?"
It
is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. We shall
tell you what we have done. Before going into a detailed discussion, it may be
well to summarize some points as we see them.
How many times 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. " "The doctor told him
that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up
again. "
Now,
these are commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time. Back
of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding. We see that these
expressions refer to people whose reactions are very different from ours.
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 bad 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
ever need medical attention.
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10.
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 the 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 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, 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 misplaced 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 days when he simply cannot make it
and gets drunk all over again. Perhaps he goes to a doctor who gives him a dose
of morphine or some high-voltage 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.
Why
does he behave like this? 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? 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?
Perhaps
there never will be a full answer to these questions.
Psychiatrists and medical men vary considerably in their opinion as to why the
alcoholic reacts differently from normal people. No one is sure why, once a
certain point is reached, nothing 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 that.
These
observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first
drink thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the real 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 theme really make sense in the
light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates. They sound to you like
the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beat him self on the head
with a hammer so that he couldn'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.
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11.
Once
in a while he may tell you 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, some day, 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 waits 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 will seldom
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 non-existent. We are unable at certain times, no
matter how well we understand ourselves, 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 treadbare 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 nonchalent
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 all human aid, and unless
locked up, is certain to die, or go 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 one hundred more convincing
demonstrations. So many want to stop, but cannot.
There
is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the levelling 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 our 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.
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12.
If
you are seriously alcoholic, we believe you have no middle-of-the-road
solution. You are in a position where life is becoming impossible, and if you
have passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid,
you have but two alternatives: one is to go on to the bitter end, blotting out
the consciousness of your intolerable situation as best you can; and the other,
to find what we have found. This you can do if you
honestly want to, and are willing to make the effort.
A
certain American business man had ability, good sense,
and high character. For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another.
He had consulted the best known American
psychiatrists. Then he had gone to Europe, placing himself in the care of a
celebrated physician who prescribed for him. Though bitter experience had made
him skeptical, he finished his treatment with unusual confidence. His physical
and mental condition were unusually good. Above all, he believed he had
acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its
hidden springs, that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a
short time. More baffling still, he could give himself no satisfactory
explanation for his fall.
So he returned to this doctor, whom he
admired, and asked him point-blank why he could not recover. He wished above
all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well-balanced
with respect to other problems. Yet he had no control
whatever over alcohol. Why was this?
He
begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor's
judgement 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. That was a great
physician's opinion.
But
this man still lives, and is a free man. He does not
need a bodyguard, nor is he confined. He can go anywhere on this earth where
other free men may go with out disaster, provided he remains willing to
maintain a certain simple attitude.
Some
of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us
tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had
with his doctor.
The
doctor said: "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen
one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it
does in you. " Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on
him with a clang.
He
said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?"
"Yes,
" replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours
have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while,
alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual 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. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such
emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals the methods which I
employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of
your description. "
Upon
hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected that, after
all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the
doctor's telling him that his religious convictions were very good, but that in
his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience.
Here
was the terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had the
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extraordinary experience, which as we
have already told you, made him a free man.
We, in our turn, sought the same escape,
will all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed,
has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, "a design for living that
really works.
The distinguished American psychologist,
William James, in his book, "Varieties of Religious Experience, "
indicates a multitude of ways in which men have found God. As a group, we have
no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which God can be
discovered. If what we have learned, and felt, and seen, means anything at all,
it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed or color, are the children of
a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable
terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. Those having
religious affiliations will find here nothing disturbing to their beliefs or
ceremonies. There is no friction among us over such matters.
We think it no
concern of ours, as a group, what religious bodies our members identify
themselves with as individuals. This should be an entirely personal affair
which each one decides for himself in the light of past association, or his
present choice. Not all of us have joined religious bodies, but most of us
favor such memberships.
In the following chapter, there appears
an explanation of alcoholism as we understand it, then a chapter addressed to
the agnostic. Many who once were in this class are now among our members;
surprisingly enough, we find such convictions no great obstacle to a spiritual
experience.
There is a group of personal narratives.
Then clear-cut directions are given showing how an alcoholic may recover. These
are followed by more than a score of personal experiences.
Each individual, in the personal stories,
describes in his own language, and from his own point of view the way he found
or rediscovered God. These give a fair cross section of our membership and a
clear-cut idea of what has actually happened in their lives.
We hope no one will consider these
self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and
women, desperately in need, 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. "
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Page 14.
Chapter Three
MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
Most of us have been unwilling to admit
we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally
different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking
careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could
drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and
enjoy his liquor drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The
persistance of this illusion is astonishing. Many
pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede
to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in
recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, had to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who had
lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever
recovered this control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control,
but such intervals — usually brief — were inevitably followed by still less
control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We
are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a
progressive illness. Over any considerable period we
get worse, never better.
We are like men who have lost their legs;
they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment
which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every
imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been
brief recovery, followed always by still worse relapse. Physicians who are
familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal
drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it
evidently hasn't done so yet.
Despite all we can say, many who are real
alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of
self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves
exceptions to the rule, therefore non-alcoholic. 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. Heaven
knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!
Here are some of the methods we have
tried: drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone,
never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the
house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties,
switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to
resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off
forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise,
reading inspirational books, consulting psychologists, going to health farms
and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums — we could increase
the list ad infinitum.
We do not like to brand any individual as
an alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. Step over to the nearest
barroom and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try
it more than once. It will not take long for you to decide,
if you are honest with yourself about it. It will be worth a bad case of
jitters if you get thoroughly sold on the idea that you are a candidate for
Alcoholics Anonymous!
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Though there is no way of proving it, we
believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped
drinking. But the difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop
while there is yet time. We have heard of a few instances where people, who
showed definite signs of alcoholism, were able to stop because of an
overpowering desire to to so. Here is one.
A man of thirty was doing a great deal of
spree drinking. He was very nervous in the morning after these bouts and
quieted himself with more liquor. He was ambitious to succeed in business, but saw that he would get nowhere if he drank at
all. Once he started, he had no control whatever. He made up his mind that
until he had been successful in business and had retired, he would not touch
another drop. An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years,
and retired at the age of fifty-five, after a successful and happy business
career. 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. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle. In two months he was in a hospital, puzzled and humiliated. He
tried to regulate his drinking for a while, making several trips to the hospital meantime. Then, gathering all his forces, he
attempted to stop, and found he could not. Every means of solving his problem
which money could buy was at his disposal. Every attempt failed. Though a
robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly, and
was dead within four years.
This case contains a powerful lesson.
Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally. But here is a man who at
fifty-five years found he was just where he had left off at thirty. We have
seen the truth demonstrated again and again; "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 you are planning to stop drinking, there must be
no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday you will be
immune to alcohol.
Young people may be encouraged by this
man's experience to think that they can stop as he did, on
their own will power. We doubt if many of them can do
it, because none will really want to stop, and hardly
one of them, because of the peculiar mental twist already acquired, will find
he can win out. Several of our crowd, men of thirty-five or less, had been
drinking but a few years, but they found themselves as helpless as those who
had been drinking twenty years.
To be gravely affected, one does not
necessarily have to drink a long time, nor take the quantities some of us have.
This is particularly true of women. Potential feminine alcoholics often turn
into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain
drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholic, are astonished at
their inability to stop. We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large
numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere. But try and get
them to see it!
As we look back, we feel we had gone on
drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our will power. If
anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area, let him try
leaving liquor alone for one year. If he is a real alcoholic and very far advanced, there is scant chance of success. In the
early days of our drinking we occasionally remained
sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers again later. Though you may
be able to stop for a considerable period, you may yet be a potential
alcoholic. We think few, to whom this book will appeal, can
stay dry anything like a year. Some will be drunk the day after making
their resolutions; most of them within a few weeks.
For those who are unable to drink
moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course,
that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual basis depends somewhat upon the
strength of
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his character, and how much he really
wants to be done with it. But even more will it depend upon the extent to which
he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of
us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease
forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism
as we know it — this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the
necessity or the wish.
How then shall we help our readers
determine, to their own satisfaction, whether they are one of us? The
experiment of quitting for a period of time will be helpful, but we think we
can render an even greater service to alcoholic sufferers, and perhaps to the
medical fraternity. So we shall describe some of the
mental states that precede a relapse into drinking, for obviously this is 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, who have reasoned with him after a spree which has brought him
to the point of divorce or bankruptcy, are mystified when he walks directly
into a saloon. Why does he? Of what is he thinking?
Our first example is a friend we shall
call Jim. This man has a charming wife and family. He inherited a lucrative
automobile agency. He had a commendable world war record. He is a good
salesman. Everybody likes him. He is an intelligent man, normal so far as we
can see, except for a nervous disposition. He did no
drinking until he was thirty-five. In a few years he became so violent when
intoxicated that he had to be committed. On leaving the asylum, he came into
contact with us.
We told him what we know of alcoholism
and the answer we had found. He made a beginning. His family was re-assembled,
and he began to work as a salesman for the business he had lost through
drinking. All went well for a time, but he failed to enlarge his spiritual
life. To his consternation, he found himself drunk half a dozen times in rapid
succession. On each of these occasions we worked with him, reviewing carefully
what had happened. He agreed he was a real alcoholic and in serious condition.
He knew he faced another trip to the asylum if he kept on. Moreover, he would
lose his family, for whom he had deep affection.
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. I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a salesman for a
concern I once owned. I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious.
Then I decided to drive into the country and see one of my prospects for a car.
On the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a
bar. I had no intention of drinking. I just thought I would get a sandwich. I
also had the notion that I might find a customer for a car at this place, which
was familiar, for I had been going to it for years. I
had eaten there many times during the months I was sober. I sat down at a table
and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I
ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk.
"Suddenly the thought crossed my
mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk, it couldn't hurt me
on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I vaguely
sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured, as I was taking the
whiskey on a full stomach. The experiment went so well that I ordered another
whiskey and poured it into more milk. That didn't seem to bother me so I tried
another. "
Thus started on more journey to the asylum for Jim.
Here was the threat of commitment, the loss of family and position, to say
nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always
caused him. He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all reasons
for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea he could
take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk!
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Whatever the precise medical definition
of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of
proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else?
You may think this an
extreme case. To us it is not-far fetched. for this
kind of thinking has been characteristic of every single one of our group. Some of us have sometimes reflected more than Jim
did, upon the consequences. 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 sound reasoning failed to hold
us in check. The insane idea won out. Next day we would ask ourselves, in all
earnestness and sincerity, how it could have happened.
In some circumstances we have gone out
deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified
by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like. But even in
this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a
spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. 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.
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. He gets a thrill out
of skipping in front of fast-moving vehicles. He enjoys himself
a few years in spite of friendly warnings. Up to this point you would label him
as a foolish chap, having queer ideas of fun. Luck then deserts him and he is
slightly injured several times in succession. You would expect him, if he were
normal, to cut it out. Presently he is hit again and this time
has a fractured skull. Within a week after leaving the hospital, a fast-moving
trolley car breaks his arm. He tells you he has decided to stop jay-walking for good, but in a few weeks he breaks both
legs.
On through the years this conduct continues, accompanied by his continual promises
to be careful or to keep off the streets altogether. Finally, he can no longer
work, his wife gets a divorce, he is held up to ridicule. He tries every known
means to get the jay-walking idea out of his head. He shuts himself up in an
asylum, hoping to mend his ways. But the day he comes out he races in front of
a fire engine, which breaks his back. Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he?
You may think our illustration is too
ridiculous. But is it? We, who have been through the wringer, have to admit if we substituted alcoholism for jay-walking,
the illustration would fit us exactly. However intelligent we may have been in
other respects, where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane.
It's strong language — but isn't it true?
Some of you are thinking: "Yes, what
you tell us is true, but it doesn't fully apply. We admit we have some of these
symptoms, but we have not gone to the extremes you fellows did, nor are we
likely to, for we understand ourselves so well after what you have told us that
such things cannot happen again. We have not lost everything in life through
drinking and we certainly do not intend to. Thanks for the information. "
That may be true of certain non-alcoholic
people who, though drinking foolishly and heavily at the present time, are able
to stop or moderate, because their brains and bodies have not been warped and
degenerated as ours were. But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an
exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of
self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and reemphasize, to smash
home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience.
Let us take another illustration.
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Fred is partner in a well
known accounting firm. His income is good, he has a fine home, is
happily married and the father of promising children of college age. He is so
attractive a personality that he makes friends with everyone. If ever there was
a successful business man, it is Fred. To all
appearances he is a stable, well balanced individual.
Yet, he is alcoholic. We first saw Fred about a year ago in a hospital where he
had gone to recover from a bad case of jitters. It was his first experience of
this kind, and he was much ashamed of it. Far from
admitting he was an alcoholic, he told himself he came to the hospital to rest
his nerves. The doctor intimated strongly that he might be worse than he
realized. For a few days he was depressed about his condition. He made up his
mind to quit drinking altogether. It never occurred to him that perhaps he
could not do so, in spite of his character and standing. Fred would not believe
himself an alcoholic, much less accept a spiritual
remedy for his problem. We told him about alcoholism. He was interested and
conceded that he had some of the symptoms, but he was a long way from admitting
that he could do nothing about it himself. He was positive that this
humiliating experience, plus the knowledge he had acquired, would keep him sober the rest of his life. Self-knowledge would fix it.
We heard no more of Fred for a while. One
day we were told that he was back in the hospital. This time he was quite
shaky. He soon indicated he was anxious to see us. The story he told is most
instructive for here was a chap absolutely convinced he had to stop drinking,
who had no excuse for drinking, who exhibited splendid judgment and
determination in all his other concerns, yet was flat on his back
nevertheless.
Let him tell you about it: "I was
much impressed with what you fellows said about alcoholism, but I frankly did
not believe it would be possible for me to drink again. I somewhat 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. I reasoned I was
not so far advanced as most of you fellows, that I had been usually successful
in licking my other personal and problems, that I would therefore be successful
where you men failed. I felt I had every right to be self-confident, that it
would be only a matter of exercising my will power and keeping on guard.
"In this frame of mind, I went about
my business and for a time all was well. I had no trouble refusing drinks, and began to wonder if I had not been making too
hard work of a simple matter. One day I went to Washington to present some
accounting evidence to a government bureau. I had been out of town before
during this particular dry spell, so there was nothing new about that.
Physically, I felt fine. Neither did I have any pressing problems or worries.
My business came off well, I was pleased and knew my partners would be too. It
was the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon.
"I went to my hotel and leisurely
dressed for dinner. As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought
came to mind it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner. That
was all. Nothing more. I ordered a cocktail and my meal. Then I ordered another
cocktail. After dinner I decided to take a walk. When I returned to the hotel
it struck me a highball would be fine before going to bed, so I stepped into
the bar and had one. I remember having several more that night and plenty next
morning. I have a shadowy recollection of being in an airplane bound for New
York, of finding a friendly taxicab driver at the landing field instead of my
wife. The driver escorted me about for several days. I
know little of where I went, or what I said and did.
Then came the hospital with its unbearable mental and physical suffering.
"As soon as I regained my ability to
think, I went carefully over that evening in
Washington. Not only had I been off guard, I had made
no fight whatever against
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Page 19.
that first drink. This time I had not
thought of the consequences at all. I had commenced to drink as carelessly as
though the cocktails were ginger ale. I now remembered what my alcoholic
friends had told me, how they phophesied that if I
had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come — I would drink again.
They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way
before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that did happen and
more, for what I had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. I knew
from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will
power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank
spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing
blow.
"Two of the members of Alcoholics
Anonymous came to see me. They grinned, which I didn't like so much, and then
asked me if I thought myself alcoholic and if I were really licked this time. I
had to concede both propositions. They piled on me heaps of medical evidence to
the effect that an alcoholic mentality, such as I had exhibited in Washington,
was a hopeless condition. They cited cases out of their own experience by the
dozen. This process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that I could do
the job myself.
"Then they outlined the spiritual
answer and program of action which a hundred of them had followed successfully.
Though I had been only a nominal churchman, their proposals were not,
intellectually, hard to swallow. But the program of action, though entirely
sensible, was pretty drastic. It meant I would have to throw several lifelong
conceptions out of the window. That was not easy. But the moment I made up my
mind to go through with the process, I had the curious feeling that my
alcoholic condition was relieved, as in fact it proved to be.
"Quite as important was the
discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. I have since
been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more
useful than the life I lived before. My old manner of life was by no means a
bad one, but I would not exchange its best moments for the worst I have now. I
would not go back to it even if I could. "
Fred's story speaks for itself. We hope
it strikes home to thousands like him. He had felt only the first nip of the
wringer. Most alcoholics have to be pretty badly mangled before they really
commence to solve their problems.
Most doctors and psychiatrists agree with
our conclusions. One of these men, staff member of a world-renowned hospital,
recently made this statement to some of us: "What you say about the
general hopelessness of the average alcoholic's plight is, in my opinion,
correct. As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in
my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from Divine help. Had you offered
yourselves as patients at this hospital, I would not have taken you, if I had been able to avoid it. People like you are too
heartbreaking. Though not a religious person, I have profound respect for the
spiritual approach in such cases as yours. For most cases, there is virtually
no other solution. "
Once more: the alcoholic at certain times
has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare
cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His
defense must come from a higher Power.
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Chapter Four
WE AGNOSTICS
In the preceding chapters, you have
learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made
clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If, when you
honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if, when drinking, you
have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If
that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness
which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
To one who feels he is an atheist or
agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means
disaster especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed
to an alcoholic hell or be "saved" — not easy alternatives to face.
But it isn't so difficult. About half our
fellowship were of exactly that type. At first some of us tried to avoid the
issue, hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics. But after a while we
had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life — or else.
Perhaps it is going to be that way with you. But cheer up, something like fifty
of us thought we were atheists or agnostics. Our experience shows that you need
not disconcerted.
If a mere code of morals, or a better
philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would
have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not
save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish
to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will
these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human
resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We
had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be A Power Greater
Than Ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is
about. Its main object is to enable you to find a
Power greater than yourself, which will solve your problem. That means we have
written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means,
of course, that we are going to talk about God. Here difficulty arises with
agnostics. Many times we talk to a new man and watch
his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship.
But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we
mention God, for we have re-opened a subject which our man thought he had
neatly evaded or entirely ignored.
We know how he feels. We have shared his
honest doubt and prejudice. Some of us have been violently anti-religious. To
others, the word "God" brought up a particular idea of Him with which
someone had tried to impress us during childhood. Perhaps we rejected this
particular conception because it seemed inadequate.
With that rejection we imagined we had abandoned the God idea entirely. We were
bothered with the thought that faith and dependence upon a Power beyond
ourselves was somewhat weak, even cowardly. We looked upon this world of
warring individuals, warring theological systems, inexplicable calamity, with
deep skepticism. We looked askance at many individuals
who claimed to be godly. How could a Supreme Being have anything to do with it
all? And who could comprehend a Supreme Being anyhow? Yet, in other moments, we
found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by the starlit night,
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"Who, then, made all this?"
There was a feeling of awe and wonder, but it was fleeting and soon lost.
Yes, we of agnostic temperament have had
these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found
that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a
willingness to believe in a Power greater that ourselves, we commenced to get
results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or
comprehend that Power, which is God.
Much to our relief, we discovered we did
not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however
inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with
Him. As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence,
A Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be
possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple
steps. We found that God does not make hard terms with those who seek Him. To us,
the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or
forbidding. It is open, we believe, to all men.
When, therefore, we speak to you of God,
we mean your own conception of God. This applies, too, to other spiritual
expressions which you find in this book. Do not let any prejudice you may have
against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean
to you. At the start, this is all you will need to commence spiritual growth,
to effect your first conscious relation with God, as you understand Him.
Afterward, you will find yourself accepting many things which now seem entirely
out of reach. That is growth, but if you are going to grow, you have to begin
somewhere. So use your own conception, however limited
it may be.
You need ask
yourself but one short question. "Do I now believe, or am I even willing
to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?" As soon as a man
can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure
him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon
this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be
built.
That was great news to us, for we had
assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many
things on faith which seemed difficult to believe.
When people presented us with spiritual approaches, how frequently did we all
say: "I wish I had what that man has. I'm sure it would work if I could
only believe as he believes. But I cannot accept as surely true the many
articles of faith which are so plain to him. " So
it was comforting to learn that we could commence at a simpler level.
Besides a seeming inability to accept
much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have
been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle
with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us
resisted, we founds no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced
with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded
on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect
alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of
reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one will be
prejudiced as long as some of us were.
The reader may still ask why he should
believe in a Power greater than himself. We think there are good reasons. Let
us have a look at some of them.
The practical individual
of today is a stickler for facts and results.
Nevertheless, the twentieth century readily accepts theories of all kinds,
provided they are firmly grounded in fact. We have numerous theories, for
example, about electricity. Everybody believes them without a murmur of doubt.
Why this ready acceptance?
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Simply because it is impossible to
explain what we see, feel, direct, and use, without a reasonable assumption as
a starting point.
Everybody nowadays,
believes in scores of assumptions for which there is good evidence, but no
perfect visual proof. And does not science demonstrate that visual proof is the
weakest proof? It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material
world, that outward appearances are not inward reality at all. To illustrate:
The prosaic steel girder is a mass of
electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed. These tiny bodies are
governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material
world. Science tells us so. We have no reason to doubt it. When, however, the
perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material world,
and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative
Intelligence, right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we
laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so. We read wordy books and
indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to
explain it. Were our contentions true, it would follow that life originated out
of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere.
Instead of regarding ourselves as
intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation, we agnostics
and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word,
the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all. Rather vain of us,
wasn't it?
We, who have traveled this dubious path,
beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have
learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to
millions. People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about.
Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse
ourselves as we cynically dissected spiritual beliefs and practices; we might
have observed that many spiritually-minded persons of
all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability,
happiness and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves.
Instead, we looked at the human defects
of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings
as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance, while we were
intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest
because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave
the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.
In the stories which follow you will find
wide variation in the way each teller approaches and conceives of the Power
which is greater than himself. Whether you agree with a particular approach or
conception seems to make little difference. Experience has taught that these
are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried. They are
questions for each individual to settle for himself.
On one proposition, however, these men
and women are strikingly agreed. Everyone of them has gained access to, and believes in a Power greater than himself. This Power
has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. As a
celebrated American statesman puts it, "Let's look at the record. "
Here are one hundred men and women,
worldly and sophisticated indeed. They flatly declare to you that since they
have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain
attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a
revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. They tell you that in
the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their
human resources, that a new Power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction has
flowed into them. This happened soon after they whole-heartedly met
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a few simple requirements. Once confused
and baffled by the seeming futility of
existence they will show you the underlying reasons why they were making
heavy going of life. Leaving aside the
drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They will show you how the change came over
them. When one hundred people, much like you, are able to say that
consciousness of The Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a
powerful reason why you too should have faith.
This world of ours has made more material
progress in the last century than in all
the milleniums which sent
before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of
men in those days was equal to the best
of today. Yet in ancient times material progress was painfully slow. The
spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research and invention was almost unknown.
In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by superstition,
tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas.
The contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth preposterous. Others like them came near putting Galileo
to death for his astronomical heresies.
But ask yourself this: are
not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients
about the realm of the material? Even in the present century, American
newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright Brothers first successful flight at
Kittyhawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed
before? Did not Professor Langley's absurd flying machine go to the
bottom of the Potomac river? Was it not
true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? Had not
people said God had reserved this privilege to the birds? Only thirty years
later the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was
in full swing.
But in most fields our generation has
witnessed complete liberation of our
thinking. Show any longshoreman a Sunday supplement describing a
proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket and he will say, "I bet
they do it — maybe not so long either.
" Is not our age characterized by the ease with
which we discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness with which we
throw away the theory or gadget which
does not work for something new which does?
We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't
apply to our human problems this same
readiness to change the point of view. We were having trouble with
personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a
prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of
uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of
real help to other people — was not a
basic solution of this bedevilment more important than whether we should
see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course
it was.
When we saw others solve their problems
by simple reliance upon the Spirit of
this universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did
not work. But the God idea did.
The Wright Brothers' almost childish
faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of
their accomplishment. Without that, nothing could have happened. We agnostics and atheists were
sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems. When
others showed us that
"God-sufficiency" worked with them, we began to feel like
those who had insisted the Wrights would
never fly.
Logic is great stuff. We liked it. We
still like it. It is not by chance we were given the
power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses, and to draw
conclusions. That is one of man's magnificent attributes. We agnostically
inclined would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itself to
reasonable
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approach and interpretation. Hence we are
at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we
say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt
and said, "We don't know. "
When we became alcoholics, crushed by a
self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face
the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either
is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?
Arrived at this point, we were squarely
confronted with the question of faith. We couldn't duck the issue. Some of us
had already walked far over the Bridge of Reason toward the desired shore of
faith. The outlines and the promise of the New Land had brought lustre to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits.
Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome. We were grateful that Reason had
brought us so far. But somehow, we couldn't quite step ashore. Perhaps we had
been leaning too heavily on Reason that last mile and we did not like to lose
our support.
That was natural, but
let us think a little more closely. Without knowing it, had we not been brought
to where we stood by a certain kind of faith? For did we not believe in our own
reasoning? Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that
but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of
Reason. So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved
all the time!
We found too,
that we had been worshippers. What a state of mental gooseflesh that used to
bring on! Had we not variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, and
ourselves? And then, with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the
sunset, the sea, or a flower? Who of us had not loved
something or somebody? How much did these feelings, these loves, these worships
have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing, we saw
at last. Were not these things the tissue out of which our lives were constructed?
Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It
was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith, or love, or worship. In one
form or another we had been living by faith and little else.
Imagine life without faith! Were nothing
left but pure reason, it wouldn't be life. But we believed in life — of course
we did. We could not prove life in the sense that you can prove a straight line
is the shortest distance between two points: yet,
there it was. Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of
electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of
nothingness? Of course we couldn't. The electrons themselves seemed more
intelligent than that. At least, so the chemist said.
Hence, we saw that reason isn't
everything. Neither is reason, as most of us used it, entirely dependable,
though it emanate from our best minds. What about people who proved that man
could never fly?
Yet we had been seeing another kind of
flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their
problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled. We had
seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true.
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and
child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp,
by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in
a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in
human lives, are facts as old as man himself.
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We finally saw that faith in some kind of
God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a
friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much
a fact as we were. And we are sure you will find the Great Reality deep down within you. In the last analysis it is only there
that He may be found. It was so with us; why not with you?
We can only clear the ground a bit for
you. If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think
honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then you will
have joined us on the Broad Highway. With this attitude you cannot fail. The
consciousness that you do believe is sure to come to you.
In this book you will read the experience
of a man who thought he was an atheist. His story is so interesting that some
of it should be told now. His change of heart was dramatic, convincing, and
moving.
Our friend was a minister's son. He
attended church school, where he became rebellious at what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter he
was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure, insanity, fatal
illness, suicide — these calamities in his immediate family embittered and
depressed him. Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the
point of self-destruction.
One night when confined in a hospital, he
was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our
friend's gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: "If there is a God, He
certainly hasn't done anything for me. " But later, alone in his room, he
asked himself this question: "Is it possible that all the religious people
I have known are wrong?" While pondering the answer, he felt as though he
lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out
all else:
"WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THERE IS NO
GOD?"
This man recounts that he tumbled out of
bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the
Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty
of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built
through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power
and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in
conscious companionship with his Creator.
Thus was our friend's cornerstone fixed
in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken
away. That very night three years ago it disappeared. 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. Seemingly he could not drink even
if he would. God had restored his sanity.
What is this but a miracle of healing?
Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. He
humbly offered himself to his Maker — then he knew.
Even so has God restored us all to our
right minds. To this man, the Revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it
more slowly. But He has come too all who have honestly sought Him.
Draw near to Him and He will disclose
Himself to you!
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Chapter Five
HOW IT WORKS
Rarely have we see
person fail who has thoroughly followed our directions. Those who do not
recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this
simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of
being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at
fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of
grasping and developing a way of life which demands rigorous honesty. Their
chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave
emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the
capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way
what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have
decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it
—then you are ready to follow directions.
At some of these you may balk. You may
think you can find an easier, softer way. We doubt if you can. With all the
earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the
very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result
was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that you are dealing with
alcohol — cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for you. But
there is One who has all power — That One is God. You must find Him now!
Half measures will avail
you nothing. You stand at the turning point. Throw yourself under His
protection and care with complete abandon.
Now we think you can take it! Here are
the steps we took, which are suggested as your Program of Recovery:
1.
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 and direction 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 willing that God remove all these defects of character.
7.
Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to remove our shortcomings — holding
nothing back.
8.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and
became willing to make complete amends to them all.
9.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
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10.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with God,
praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.
Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of
action, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to
practice these principles in all our affairs.
You may exclaim, "What an order! I
can't go through with it. " Do not be discouraged. No one among us has
been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We
are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to
grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to
progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
Our description of the alcoholic, the
chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have
been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas:
(a) That you are alcoholic and cannot
manage your own life.
(b) That probably no human power can
relieve your alcoholism.
(c) That God can and will.
If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book to this
point or else throw it away!
If you are convinced, you are now at step
three, which is that you make a decision to turn your
will and your life over to God as you understand Him. Just what do we mean by
that, and just what do we do?
The first requirement is that you see
that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are
almost always in collission with something or
somebody, even though our motives may be good. Most people try to live by
self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show: is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet,
the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements
would only stay put, if only people would do as he wishes,
the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life
would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may
sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous;
even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean,
egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely
to have varied traits.
What usually happens? The show doesn't
come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides
to exert himself some more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more
demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him.
Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to
blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is
he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the
delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he
only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these
are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to
retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his
best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
Our actor is self-centered — ego-centric,
as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business
man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter
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complaining of the sad state of the
nation; the preacher who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century;
politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the
world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged
him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever their
protestations, are not these people mostly concerned
with themselves, their resentments, or their self-pity?
Selfishness — self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a
hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on
the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly,
without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we
have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position to be
hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out
of ourselves, and the alcoholic is almost the most
extreme example that could be found of self-will run riot, though he usually
doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this
selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there is no
way of entirely getting rid of self without Him. You may have moral and
philosophical convictions galore, but you can't live up to them even though you
would like to. Neither can you reduce your self-centeredness much by wishing or
trying on your own power. You must have God's help.
This is the how and why of it. First of
all, quit playing God yourself. It doesn't work. Next, decide that hereafter in
this drama of life, God is going to by your Director. He is the Principal; you
are to be His agent. He is the Father, and you are His child. Get that simple
relationship straight. Most good ideas are simple and this concept is to be the
keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which you will pass to freedom.
When you sincerely take such a position,
all sorts of remarkable things follow. You have a new Employer. Being all
powerful, He must necessarily provide what you need, if you keep close to Him
and perform His work well. Established on such a footing you become less and
less interested in yourself, your little plans and designs. More and more you
become interested in seeing what you can contribute to life. As you feel new
power flow in, as you enjoy peace of mind, as you discover you can face life
successfully, as you become conscious of His presence, you begin to lose your
fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. You will have been reborn.
Get down upon your knees and say to your
Maker, as you understand Him: "God, I offer myself to Thee — to build with
me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I
may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy
Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!" Think well before
taking this step. Be sure you are ready; that you can at last abandon yourself
utterly to Him.
It is very desirable that you make your
decision with an understanding person. It may be your wife, your best friend,
your spiritual adviser, but remember it is better to meet God alone that with
one who might misunderstand. You must decide this for yourself. The wording of
your decision is, of course, quite optional so long as you express the idea,
voicing it without reservation. This decision is only a beginning, though if
honestly and humbly made, an effect, sometimes a very great one, will be felt at
once.
Next we launch out on a course of
vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which you
have never in all probability attempted. Though your decision is a vital and
crucial step, it can have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a
strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things
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in yourself which have been blocking you.
Your liquor is but a symptom. Let's now get down to basic causes and
conditions.
Therefore, you start upon
a personal inventory. This is step four. A business which takes no regular
inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding
and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the
stock-in-trade. Its object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get
rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be
successful, he cannot fool himself about values.
We do exactly the same thing with our
lives. We take stock honestly. First, we search out the flaws in our make-up
which have caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various
ways, is what has defeated us, we consider its common manifestations.
Resentment is the "number one"
offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all
forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically
ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual
malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with
resentments, we set them on paper. List people,
institutions or principles with whom you are angry. Ask yourself why you are
angry. In most cases it will be found that your self-esteem, your pocketbook,
your ambitions, your personal relationships, (including sex) are hurt or
threatened. So you are sore. You are "burned up.
"
On your grudge list set opposite each
name your injuries. Is it your self-esteem, your security, your ambitions, your
personal, or your sex relations, which have been interfered with?
Be as definite as this example:
I'm resentful at: The Cause Affects
my:
Mr. Brown His
attention to my wife. Sex relations.
Self-esteem (fear)
Told my wife of my mistress. Sex relations.
Self-esteem (fear)
Brown may get my job at the office. Security.
Self-esteem (fear)
Mrs. Jones She's
a nut — she snubbed me.
She committed her husband for Personal relation-
drinking. He's my friend. She's ship.
Self-esteem
a gossip. (fear)
My employer Unreasonable — Unjust — Over-
bearing — Threatens to fire me for Self-esteem (fear)
drinking and padding my expense Security
account.
My wife Misunderstands and nags.
Likes Pride — Personal
Brown. Wants house put
in her name. and sex relations-
Security (fear)
Go on through the list back through your
lifetime. Nothing counts but thoroughness and honesty. When you are finished consider it carefully. The first thing apparent to you
is that this world and its people are
quite wrong. To conclude
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that others are wrong is as far as most
of us ever get. The usual outcome is that people continue to wrong you and you
stay sore. Sometimes it is remorse and then you are
sore at yourself. But the more you fight and try to have your way, the worse
matters get. Isn't that so? As in war, victors only seem to win. Your moments
of triumph are short-lived.
It is plain that a way of life which
includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise
extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been
worth while. But with the alcoholic whose only hope is the maintenance and
growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely
grave. We find that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut
ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns
and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
If we are to live, we must be free of
anger. The grouch and the brainstorm are not for us. They may be the dubious
luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.
Turn back to your list, for it holds the
key to your future. You must be prepared to look at it from an entirely
different angle. You will begin to see that the world and its people really
dominate you. In your present state, the wrongdoing of others, fancied or real,
has power to actually kill you. How shall you escape? You see that these
resentments must be mastered, but how? You cannot wish them away any more than
alcohol.
This is our course: realize at once that
the people who wrong you are spiritually sick. Though you don't like their
symptoms and the way these disturb you, they, like yourself, are sick, too. Ask
God to help you show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that you would
cheerfully grant a friend who has cancer. When a person next offends, say to
yourself "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me
from being angry. Thy will be done. "
Never argue. Never retaliate. You
wouldn't treat sick people that way. If you do, you destroy your chance of
being helpful. You cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show
you how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.
Take up your list again. Putting out of
your mind the wrongs others have done, resolutely look for your own mistakes.
Where have you been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a
situation may not be entirely your fault, disregard the other person involved
entirely. See where you have been to blame. This is your inventory, not the
other man's. When you see your fault write it down on the list. See it before
you in black and white. Admit your wrongs honestly and be willing to set these
matters straight.
You will notice that the word fear is
bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, your employer,
and your wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.
It is an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence is shot through
with it. It sets in motion trains of circumstances which bring us misfortune we
feel we don't deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set
the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing as
a sin. It seems to cause more trouble.
Review your fears thoroughly. Put them on
paper, even though you have no resentment in connection with them. Ask yourself
why you have them. Isn't it because self-reliance has failed you? Self-reliance
was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had
great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any
other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.
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Perhaps there is a better way — we think
so. For you are now to go on a different basis; the basis of trusting and
relying upon God. You are to trust infinite God rather than your finite self.
You are in the world to play the role he assigns. Just to the extent that you
do as you think He would have you, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable you
to match calamity with serenity.
You must never apologize to anyone for
depending upon your Creator. You can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness, Paradoxically, it is the way of
strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith
have courage. They trust their God. Never apologize for God. Instead let Him
demonstrate, through you, what He can do. Ask Him to remove your fear and
direct your attention to what He would have you be. At once, you will commence
to outgrow fear.
Now about sex. You can probably stand an
overhauling there. We needed it. But above all, let's be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off the track.
Here we find human opinions running to extremes — absurd extremes, perhaps. One
set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of
procreation. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail
the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race
are traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it, or that it
isn't the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One school would
allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight
pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the
arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human
if we didn't. What can we do about them?
Review your own conduct over the years
past. Where have you been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom did you
hurt? Did you unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where you
were at fault, what should you have done instead? Get this all down on paper
and look at it.
In this way you can shape a sane and
sound ideal for your future sex life. Subject each relation to this test — is
it selfish or not? Ask God to mould your ideals and
help you to live up to them. Remember always that your sex powers are
God-given, and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to
be despised and loathed.
Whatever your ideal may be, you must be
willing to grow toward it. You must be willing to make amends where you have
done harm, provided that you will not bring about still more harm in so doing.
In other words, treat sex as you would any other problem. In meditation, ask
God what you should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come,
if you want it.
God alone can judge your sex situation.
Counsel with persons is often desirable, but let God be the final judge.
Remember that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. Avoid
hysterical thinking or advice.
Suppose you fall short of the chosen
ideal and stumble. Does this mean you are going to get drunk? Some people will
tell you so. If they do, it will be only a half-truth.
It depends on you and your motive. If you are sorry for what you have done, and have the honest desire to let God take you to
better things, you will be forgiven and will have learned your lesson. If you
are not sorry, and your conduct continues to harm others, you are quite sure to
drink. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience.
To sum up about sex: earnestly pray for
the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and
for the strength to do the right thing. If
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sex is very troublesome, throw yourself
the harder into helping others. Think of their needs and work for them. This
will take you out of yourself. It will quiet the imperious urge, when to yield
would mean heartache.
If you have been thorough about your
personal inventory, you have written down a lot by this time. You have listed
and analyzed your resentments. You have begun to comprehend their futility and
their fatality. You have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. You
have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even your
enemies, for you know them to be sick people. You have listed the people you
have hurt by your conduct, and you are willing to straighten out the past if you
can.
In this book you read again and again
that God did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are
convinced now that He can remove the self-will that has blocked you off from
Him. You have made your decision. You have made an inventory of the grosser
handicaps you have. You have made a good beginning, for you have swallowed and
digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. Are you willing to go on?
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Chapter Six
INTO ACTION
Having made your personal inventory, what
shall you do about it? You have been trying to get a new attitude, a new
relationship with your Creator, and to discover the obstacles in your path. You
have admitted certain defects; you have ascertained in a rough way what the
trouble is; you have put your finger on the weak items in your personal
inventory. Now these are about to be case out. This
requires action on your part, which, when completed, will mean that you have
admitted to God, to yourself, and to another human being, the exact nature of
your defects. This brings us to the fifth step in the Program of Recovery
mentioned in the preceding chapter.
This is perhaps difficult — especially
discussing your defects with another person. You think you have done well
enough in admitting these things to yourself, perhaps. We doubt that. In actual
practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. We
strenuously urge you to go much further. But you will be more reconciled to
discussing yourself with another person if we offer good reasons why you should
do so. The best reason first: if you skip this vital step, you may not overcome
drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain
facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have
turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered
with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. The answer is that
they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They
only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had
humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness
and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else
all their life story.
More than most people, the alcoholic
leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents
his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to
enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he
doesn't deserve it.
The inconsistency is made worse by the
things he does on his sprees. Coming to his senses, he is revolted at certain
episodes he vaguely remembers. These memories are a nightmare. He trembles to
think someone might have observed him. As fast as he can, he pushes these
memories far inside himself. He hopes they will never see the light of day. He
is under constant fear and tension — that makes for more drinking.
Psychologists agree with us. Members of
our group have spent thousands of dollars for
examinations by psychologists and psychiatrists. We know but few instances
where we have given these doctors a fair break. We have seldom told them the
whole truth. Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men, we were honest
with no one else. Small wonder the medical profession has a low opinion of
alcoholics and their chance for recovery!
You must be entirely honest with somebody
if you expect to live long or happily in
this world. Rightly and naturally, you are going to think well before you
choose the person or persons with whom to take this intimate and confidential
step. If you belong to a religious denomination which requires confession, you
must, and
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of course, will
want to go to the properly appointed authority whose duty it is to receive it.
Though you have no religious connection, you may still do well to talk with
someone ordained by an established religion. You will often find such a person
quick to see and understand your problem. Of course, we sometimes encounter
ministers who do not understand alcoholics.
If you cannot, or would rather not do
this, search your acquaintance for a close-mouthed, understanding friend.
Perhaps your doctor or your psychologist will be the person. It may be one of
your own family, but you should not disclose anything to your wife or your
parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy. You have no right to save
your own skin at another person's expense. Such parts of your story you should tell to someone who will understand, yet
be unaffected. The rule is you must be hard on yourself, but always considerate
of others.
Notwithstanding the great necessity for
discussing yourself with someone, it may be that you are so situated that there
is no suitable person available. If that is so, you may postpone this step,
only, however, if you hold yourself in complete readiness to go through with it
at the first opportunity. We say this because we are very anxious that you talk
to the right person. It is important that he be able to keep a confidence; that
he fully understand and approve what you are driving at; that he will not try
to change your plan. But don't use this as a mere excuse to postpone.
When you decide who is to hear your
story, waste no time. Have a written inventory. Be prepared for a long talk.
Explain to your partner what you are about to do, and why you have to do it. He
should realize that you are engaged upon a life-and-death errand. Most people
approached in this way will be glad to help; they will be honored by your
confidence.
Pocket your pride and go to it! Illumine
every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once you have taken
this step, witholding nothing, you will be delighted.
You can look the world in the eye. You can be alone at perfect peace and ease.
Your fears will fall from you. You will begin to feel the nearness of your
Creator. You may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now you will begin to
have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared
will come strongly. You will know you are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in
hand with the Spirit of the Universe.
Return home and find a place where you
can be quiet for an hour. Carefully review what you have done. Thank God from
the bottom of your heart that you know Him better. Take this book down from
your shelf and turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully read
the first five proposals and ask if you have omitted anything, for you are
building an arch through which you will walk a free man at last. Is your part
of the work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have you skimped on
the cement you have put into the foundation? Have you tried to make mortar
without sand?
If you can answer to your satisfaction,
look at step six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are
you now perfectly willing to let God remove from you all the things which you
have admitted are objectionable? Can He now take them all — every
one? If you yet cling to something you will not let go, ask God to help
you be willing.
When you are ready, say something like
this: "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good
and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character
which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me
strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen. You have then
completed step seven.
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Now you need more action without which
you will find that "Faith without works is dead. " Look at steps
eight and nine. You have a list of all persons you have harmed and to whom you
are willing to make complete amends. You made it when you took inventory. You
subjected yourself to a drastic self-appraisal. Now you are to go out to your
fellows and repair the damage you did in the past. You are to sweep away the
debris which has accumulated out of your effort to live on self-will and run
the show yourself. If you haven't the will to do this, ask until it comes.
Remember you agreed at the beginning you would go to any lengths for victory
over alcohol.
You probably still have some misgivings.
We can help you dispel them. As you look over the list of business
acquaintances and friends you have hurt, you will feel diffident about going to
some of them on a spiritual basis. Let us reassure you. To some people you need
not, and probably should not emphasize the spiritual
feature on your first approach. You might prejudice them. At the moment you are
trying to put your own life in order. But this is not an end in itself. Your
real purpose is to fit yourself to be of maximum service to God and the people
about you. It is seldom wise to approach an individual, who still smarts from
your injustice to him, and announce that you have given your life to God. In
the prize ring, this would be called leading with the chin. Why lay yourself
open to being branded a fanatic or a religious bore? You may kill a future
opportunity to carry a beneficial message. But he is sure to be impressed with
a sincere desire to set right the wrong. He is going to be more interested in
your demonstration of good will than in your talk of spiritual discoveries.
Don't use this advice as an excuse for
shying away from the subject of God. When it will serve any good purpose, you
should be willing to announce your convictions with tact and common sense. The
question of how to approach the man you have hated will arise. It may be he has
done you more harm than you have dome him and, though you may have acquired a
better attitude toward him, you are still not too keen about admitting your
faults. Nevertheless, with a person you dislike, we advise you to take the bit
in your teeth. He is an ideal subject upon which to practice your new
principles. Remember that he, like yourself, is sick spiritually. Go to him in
a helpful and forgiving spirit. Be sure to confess your former ill feeling and express your regret of
it.
Under no condition should you criticize
such a person or be drawn into an argument with him. Simply tell him that you
realize you will never get over drinking until you have done your utmost to
straighten out the past. You are there to sweep off your side of the street,
realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished
until you do so. Never try to tell him what he should do. Don't discuss his
faults. Stick to your own. If your manner is calm, frank, and open, you will be
gratified with the result.
In nine cases out of ten the unexpected
happens. Sometimes the man you are calling upon admits his own fault; so feuds of years' standing melt away in an hour. Rarely
will you fail to make satisfactory progress. Your former enemies will sometimes
praise what you are doing and wish you well. Occasionally, they will cancel a debt, or otherwise offer assistance.
Its should not matter, however, if someone does throw
you out of his office. You have made your demonstration, done your part. It's
water over the dam.
Most alcoholics owe money. Do not dodge
your creditors. Tell them what you are trying to do. Make no bones about your
drinking; they usually know it anyway, whether you think so or not. Never be
afraid of disclosing your alcoholism on the theory it
may cause you financial harm. Approached in this way, the most ruthless
creditor will sometimes surprise you. Arrange the best deal you can and let
these people know you are sorry your drinking has made you slow to pay. You
must lose
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your fear of creditors no matter how far
you have to go, for you are liable to drink if you are afraid to face them.
Perhaps you have committed a criminal
offense which might land you in jail if known to the authorities. You may be
short in your accounts and can't make good. You have already admitted this in
confidence to another person, but you are sure you would be imprisoned or lose
your job if it were known. Maybe it's only a petty offence such as padding your
expense account. Most of us have done that sort of thing. Maybe you have
divorced your wife. You have remarried but haven't kept up the alimony to
number one. She is indignant about it, and has a
warrant out for your arrest. That's a common form of trouble too.
Although these reparations take
innumerable forms, there are some general principles which we find guiding.
Remind yourself that you have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual
experience. Ask that you be given the strength and direction to do the right
thing, no matter what the personal consequence to you. You may lose your
position or reputation, or face jail, but you are willing. You have to be. You
must not shrink at anything.
Usually, however, other people are
involved. Therefore, you are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would
needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit. A man we
know had remarried. Because of resentment and drinking, he had not paid alimony
to his first wife. She was furious. She went to court and got an order for his
arrest. He had commenced our way of life, had secured a position, and was
getting his head above water. It would have been impressive heroics if he had
walked up to the Judge and said, "Here I am. "
We thought he ought to be willing to do
that if necessary, but if he were in jail, he could provide nothing for either
family. We suggested he write his first wife admitting his faults and asking
forgiveness. He did, and also sent a small amount of
money. He told her that he would try to do in the
future. He said he was perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted. Of
course she did not, and the whole situation has long since been adjusted.
If taking drastic action is going to
implicate other people, they should be consulted. Use every means to avoid wide-spread damage. You cannot shrink, however, from the
final step if that is clearly indicated. If, after seeking advice, consulting
others involved, and asking God to guide you, there appears no other just and
honorable solution than the most drastic one, you must take your medicine.
Trust that the eventual outcome will be right.
This brings to mind a story about one of
our friends. While drinking, he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly-hated business rival, giving him no receipt for it.
He subsequently denied having taken the money and used the incident as a basis
for discrediting the man. He thus used his own wrong-doing
as a means of destroying the reputation of another. In fact, his rival was
ruined.
He felt he had done a wrong he could not possible make right. If he opened that old affair, he was
sure it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family and
take away his own means of livelhood. What right had he to involve those dependent upon him? How could he
possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival?
He finally came to the
conclusion that it was better to take those risks than to stand before
his Creator guilty of such ruinous slander. He saw that he had to place the
outcome in God's hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lose anyhow. He attended church for the first time in many
years. After
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the sermon, he quietly got up and made an explanation. His action met
widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his
town. This all happened three years ago.
The chances are that you have serious
domestic troubles. We are perhaps mixed up with women in a fashion you wouldn't
care to have advertised. We doubt if, in this respect, alcoholics are
fundamentally much worse than other people. But drinking does complicate sex
relations in the home. After a few years with an alcoholic, a wife gets worn
out, resentful, and uncommunicative. How could she be anything else? The
husband begins to feel lonely, sorry for himself. He commences to look around
in the night clubs, or their equivalent, for something
besides liquor. You may be having a secret and exciting affair with "the
girl who understands me. " In fairness we must say that she may
understand, but what are you going to do about a thing like that? A man so
involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he is married to a
loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him.
Whatever the situation, you usually have
to do something about it. If you are sure your wife does not know, should you
tell her? Not always, we think. If she knows in a general way that you have
been wild, should you tell her in detail? Undoubtedly you should admit your
fault. Your wife may insist on knowing all the particulars. She will want to
know who the woman is and where she is. We feel you ought to say to her that
you have no right to involve another person. You are sorry for what you have
done, and God willing, it shall not be repeated. More than that you cannot do;
you have no right to go further. Though there may be justifiable exceptions,
and though we wish to lay down no rule of any sort, we have often found this
the best course to take.
Our design for living is not a one-way
street. It is as good for the wife as for the husband. If you can forget, so
can she. It is better, however, that you do not needless
name a person upon whom she can vent her natural jealousy.
There are some cases where the utmost
frankness is demanded. Perhaps yours is one of them. No outsider can appraise
such an intimate situation. It may be you will both decide that the way of good
sense and loving kindness is to let by-gones be by-gones. Each of you might pray about it, having the other
one's happiness uppermost in mind. Keep it always in sight that you deal with
that most terrible human emotion — jealousy. Good generalship may decide that
you and your wife attack the problem on the flank, rather than risk
face-to-face combat. You have to decide about that alone with your Creator.
Should you have no such complication,
there is still plenty you should do at home. Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say
that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober. Certainly
he needs to keep sober, for there will be no home if he doesn't. But he is yet
a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has so
shockingly treated. Passing all understanding is the patience mothers and wives
have had with alcoholics. Had this not been so, many of us would have no homes
today, would perhaps be dead.
The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring
his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are
dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept
the home in turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is
enough. He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his
home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, "Don't see anything the matter
here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?"
Yes, there is a long period of
reconstruction ahead. You must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that you
are sorry won't fills the bill at all. You ought to
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sit down with your family and frankly
analyze your past as you now see it, being very careful not to criticize them.
Never mind their defects. They may be glaring, but the chances are that your
own actions are partly responsible. So clean house with the family, asking each
morning in meditation that your Creator show you the way of patience, tolerance
kindliness, and love.
The spiritual life is not a theory.
You have to live it. Unless your family
expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles, however, we think you
ought to leave them alone. You should not talk incessantly about spiritual
matters to them. They will change in time. Your practice will convince them
more than your words. Remember that ten or twenty years of drunkenness would
make a skeptic out of anyone.
There may be some wrongs you can never
fully right. Don't worry about them if you can honestly say to yourself that
you would right them if you could. Some people you cannot see — send them an
honest letter. And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases.
But don't delay if it can be avoided. Be sensible, tactful, and considerate. Be
humble without being servile or scraping. As one of God's people you are to
stand on your feet; don't crawl on your belly before anyone.
If you are painstaking about this phase
of your development, you will be amazed before you are half through. You are
going to know a new freedom and happiness. You will not regret the past nor
wish to shut the door on it. You will comprehend the word serenity and know
peace. No matter how far down the scale you have gone, you will see how your
experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will
disappear. You will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in your
fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Your whole attitude and outlook upon life
will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave you. You will
intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle you. You will
suddenly realize that God is doing for you what you could not do for yourself.
You say these are extravagent
promises. They are not. They are being fulfilled among us — sometimes quickly,
sometimes slowly. They will materialize in you if you work for them.
This thought brings us to step ten, which
suggests you continue to take personal inventory and continue to set any new
mistakes right as you go along. You vigorously commenced this way of life as
you cleaned up your past. You have entered the world of Spirit. Your next
function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an
overnight matter. It should continue for your life time.
Continue to watch yourself for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
When these crop up, ask God at once to remove them. Discuss them with someone
immediately. Make amends quickly if you have harmed anyone. Then resolutely
turn your thoughts to someone you can help. Love and tolerance of others is
your code.
And you have ceased fighting anything or
anyone — even alcohol. For by this time your sanity will have returned. You
will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, you will recoil from it as you
would from a hot flame. You will react sanely and normally. You will find this
has happened automatically. You will see that your new attitude toward liquor
has been given you without any thought or effort on
your part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. You are not fighting it,
neither are you avoiding temptation. You feel as though you had been placed in
a position of neutrality. You feel safe and protected. You have not even sworn
off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for you. You are
neither cocky, nor are you afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react
so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
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It is easy to let up on the spiritual
program of action and rest on your laurels. You are headed for trouble if you
do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really
have is a daily reprieve. Every day is a day when you have to carry the vision
of God's will into all of your activities. "How can I best serve Thee —
Thy will (not mine) be done. " These are thoughts which must go with you
constantly. You can exercise your will power along
this line all you wish. It is the proper use of the will.
Much has already been said about
receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge
and power. If you have carefully followed directions, you have begun to sense
the flow of His Spirit into you. To some extent you have become God-conscious.
You have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. But you must go further and
that means more action.
Step eleven suggests prayer and
meditation. Don't by shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using
it constantly. It works, if you have the proper attitude and work at it. It
would be easy to be vague about this matter. Yet, we believe we can give you
some definite and valuable suggestions.
When you awake tomorrow morning, look
back over the day before. Were you resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Do
you owe an apology? Have you kept something to yourself which should be
discussed with another person at once? Were you kind
and loving toward all? What could you have done better? Were you thinking of
yourself most of the time? Or were you thinking of what you could do for
others, of what you could pack into the stream of life? After you have faced
yesterday, ask God's forgiveness for any wrong. Ask to be shown what to do. Thus you keep clean as you live each day.
Next, think about the twenty-four hours
ahead. Consider your plans for the day. Before you begin, ask God to guide your
thinking. Especially ask that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or
self-seeking motives. Then go ahead and use your common sense. There is nothing
hard or mysterious about this. God gave you brains to use. Clear your thinking
of wrong motives. Your thought life will be placed on a much higher plane.
In thinking through your day you may face indecision. You may not be able to
determine which course to take. Here you ask God for inspiration, an intuitive
thought or a decision. Relax and take it easy. Don't struggle. Ask God's help.
You will be surprised how the right answers come after you have practiced a few days. What used to be the hunch or the
occasional inspiration becomes a working part of your mind. Being still
inexperienced and just making your contact with God, it is not probable that
you are going to be divinely inspired all the time. That would be a large piece
of conceit, for which you might pay in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless you will find that your thinking will, as time
passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration and guidance. You will
come to rely upon it. This is not weird or silly. Most psychologists pronounce
these methods sound.
You might conclude the period of
meditation with a prayer that you be shown all through the day what your next
step is to be, that He give you whatever you need to take care of every
situation. Ask especially for freedom from self-will. Be careful to make no
request for yourself only. You may ask for yourself,
however, if others will be helped. Never pray for your own selfish ends. People
waste a lot of time doing that, and it doesn't work. You can easily see why.
If curcumstances
warrant, ask your wife or a friend to join you in morning meditation. If you
belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion,
be sure to attend to that also. If you
are not a member of a
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religious body, you might select and
memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been
discussing. There are many helpful books also. If you do not know of any, ask
your priest, minister, or rabbi, for suggestions. Be quick to see where
religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
As you go through the day, pause when
agitated or doubtful. Be still and ask for the right thought or action. It will
come. Remind yourself you are no longer running the show. Humbly say to
yourself many times each day "Thy will be done. " You will be in much
less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.
You will become much more efficient. You will not tire easily, for you will not
be burning up energy foolishly as you did when trying to arrange life to suit yourself.
It works — it really does. Try it.
We alcoholics are undisiplined.
So let God discipline you in the simple way we have just outlined.
But this is not all. There is action and
more action. "Faith without works is dead. " What works? We shall
treat them in the next chapter which is entirely devoted to step twelve.
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Chapter Seven
WORKING WITH OTHERS
Practical experience shows that nothing
will so much insure your own immunity from drinking as intensive work with
other alcoholics. It words when other spiritual activities fail. This is our
twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when
no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember
they are fatally ill.
The kick you will get is tremendous. To
watch people come back to life, to see them help others, to watch loneliness
vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends — this
is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it.
Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.
Perhaps you are not acquainted with any
drinkers who want to recover. You can easily find some by asking a few doctors,
ministers, priests and hospitals. They will be only too glad to have your help.
Don't start out an an evangelist or reformer. Unfortunately a lot of prejudice exists. You will be
handicapped if you arouse it. Preachers and doctors don't like to be told they
don't know their business. They are usually competent and you can learn much
from them if you wish, but it happens that because of your own drinking
experience you can be uniquely useful to other alcoholics. So
cooperate; never criticise. To be helpful should be
your only aim.
When you discover a prospect for
Alcoholics Anonymous, find out all you can about him. If he does not want to
stop drinking, don't waste time trying to persuade him. You may spoil a later
opportunity. This advice is given for his family also.
They must be patient, realizing they are dealing with a sick person.
If there is any indication that he wants
to stop, have a good talk with the person most interested in him — usually his
wife. Get an idea of his behavior, his problems, his background, the
seriousness of his condition, and his religious leanings. You need this
information to put yourself in his place, to see how you would like him to
approach you if the tables were turned.
Usually it is wise to wait till he goes on a binge. The family may object to
this, but unless he is in a dangerous physical condition, it is better to risk
it. Don't deal with him when he is very drunk, unless he is ugly and the family
needs your help. Wait for the end of the spree, or at least for a lucid
interval. Then let his family or a friend ask him if he wants to quit for good
and if he would go to any extreme to do so. If he says yes, then his attention
should be drawn to you as a person who has recovered. You should be described
to him as one of a fellowship who, as a part of their own recovery, try to help
others, and who will be glad to talk to him if he cares to
see you.
If he does not want to see you, never
force yourself upon him. Neither should the family hysterically plead with him
to do anything, nor should they tell him much about you. They should wait for
the end of his next drinking bout. You might place this book where he can see
it in the interval. Here no specific rule can be given. The family must decide
these things. But urge them not to be over-anxious, for that might spoil
matters.
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The family should not try to represent
you. When possible, avoid meeting a man through his family. Approach
through a doctor or an institution is a better bet. If your man needs
hospitalization, he should have it, but not forcibly, unless he is violent. Let
the doctor tell him he has something new in the way of a solution.
When your man is better, let the doctor
suggest a visit from you. Though you have talked with the family, leave them
out of the first discussion. Under these conditions your prospect will see he
is under no pressure. He will feel he can deal with you without being nagged by
his family. Call on him while he is still jittery. He will be more receptive
when depressed.
See your man alone, if possible. At first
engage in general conversation. After a while, turn
the talk to some phase of drinking. Say enough about
your drinking habits, symptoms, and experiences to encourage him to speak of
himself. If he wishes to talk, let him do so. You will thus get a better idea
of how you ought to proceed. If he is not communicative, give him a sketch of
your drinking career up to the time you quit. But say nothing, for the moment,
of how that was accomplished. If he is in a serious mood, dwell on the troubles
liquor has caused you, being careful not to moralize or preach. If his mood is
light, tell him humorous stories of your escapades. Get him to tell some of
his.
When he sees you know all about the
drinking game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic. Tell him how
baffled you were, how you finally learned that you were sick as well as weak.
Give him an account of the struggles you made to stop. Show him the mental
twist which leads to the first drink of a spree. Do this as we have done in the
chapter on alcoholism. If he is alcoholic, he will understand you at once. He
will match your mental inconsistencies with some of his own.
If you are satisfied that he is a real
alcoholic, you may begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the malady. Show
him, from your own experience, how the queer mental condition surrounding that
first drink prevents normal functioning of the will power. Don't at this stage
refer to this book, unless he has seen it and wishes to discuss it. And be
careful not to brand him an alcoholic. Let him draw his own conclusion. If he
sticks to the idea that he can still control his drinking, tell him that
possibly he can — if he is not too alcoholic. But
insist that if he is severely afflicted, there is little chance he can recover
by himself.
Continue to speak of alcoholism as a
sickness, a fatal malady. Talk about the conditions of body and mind which
accompany it. Keep his attention focused mainly on your personal experience. If
doctors or psychiatrists have pronounced you incurable, be sure and let him
know about it. Explain that many are doomed who never realize their
predicament. Doctors who know the truth are rightly loath to tell alcoholic
patients the whole story unless it wilt serve some
good purpose, but you may talk to him about the hopelessness of alcoholism,
because you offer a solution. You will soon have your friend admitting he has
many, if not all, of the traits of the alcoholic. If his own doctor is willing
to tell him that he is alcoholic, so much the better. Even though your protege
may not have entirely admitted his condition, he has become very curious to
know how you got well. Let him ask you that question, if he will. If he does
not ask, proceed with the rest of your story. Tell him exactly what happened to
you. Stress the spiritual feature freely. If the man be agnostic or atheist,
make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of God. He
can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him. The main
thing is that he be willing to believe in a Power greater than himself and that
he live by spiritual principles.
When dealing with such a person, you had
better use everyday language to describe spiritual principles. There is no use
arousing any prejudice he may have
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against certain theological terms and
conceptions, about which he may already be confused. Don't raise such issues,
no matter what your own convictions are.
Your prospect may belong to a religious
denomination. He religious education and training may be far superior to yours.
In that case he is going to wonder how you can add anything to what he already
knows. But he will be curious to learn why his own religious convictions have
not worked, and yours have given you victory. He may be an example of the truth
that faith alone is insufficient. To be vital, faith must be accompanied by
self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action. Let him see that you are not
there to instruct him in religion. 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, there must be something wrong, or he
would not drink. Say that perhaps you can help him see where he fails to apply
to himself the very precepts he knows so well. For our purpose you represent no
particular faith or denomination. You are dealing only with general principles
common to most denominations.
Outline our program of action, telling
how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past, and why you
are now endeavoring to be helpful to him. Make it plain he is under no
obligation to you, that you hope only that he will try to help other alcoholics
when he escapes his own difficulties. Show how important it is that he place
the welfare of other people ahead of his own. Make it clear that he is not
under pressure, that he needn't see you again, if he doesn't want to. You
should not be offended if he wants to call it off, for he has helped you more
than you have helped him. If your talk has been sane, quiet and full of human
understanding, you have probably made a friend. Maybe you have disturbed him
about the question of alcoholism. This is all to the
good. The more hopeless he feels, the better. He will be more likely to follow
your suggestions.
Your candidate may give reasons why he
need not follow all of your program. He will rebel at the thought of a drastic
housecleaning which requires discussion with other people. Do not contradict
such views. Tell him you once felt as he does, but you doubt if you would have made much progress had you not taken action. On your first visit tell him about the
fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. If he shows interest, lend him your copy of
this book.
Unless your friend wants to talk further
about himself, do not wear out your welcome. Give him a chance to think it
over. If you do stay, let him steer the conversation in any direction he likes.
Sometimes a new man is anxious to make a decision and
discuss has affairs at once, and you may be tempted to let him proceed. This is
almost always a mistake. If he has trouble later, he is likely to say you
rushed him. You will be most successful with alcoholics if you do not exhibit
any passion for crusade or reform. Never talk down to an alcoholic from any
moral or spiritual hilltop, simply lay out your kit of spiritual tools for his
inspection. Show him how they worked with you. Offer him friendship and
fellowship. Tell him that if he wants to get well you will do anything to help.
If he is not interested in your solution,
if he expects you to act only as a banker for his financial difficulties or a
nurse for his sprees, drop him until he changes his mind. This he may do after
he gets hurt again.
If he is sincerely interested and wants
to see you again, ask him to be sure to read this book in the interval. After
doing that, he is to decide for himself whether he wants to go on. He is not to
be pushed or prodded by you, his wife, or his friends. If he is to find God,
the desire must come from within.
If he thinks he can do the job in some
other way, or prefers some other spritual approach,
encourage him to follow his own conscience. You have no monopoly on
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God; you merely have an approach that worked with you. But point out that we
alcoholics have much in common and that you would like, in any case, to be
friendly. Let it go at that.
Do not be discouraged if your prospect
does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. You are
sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer.
It's a waste of time and poor strategy to keep chasing a man who cannot or will
not work with you. If you leave such a person alone, in all likelihood he will
begin to run after you, for he will soon become convinced that he cannot
recover alone. To spend too much time on any one
situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy.
One of our fellowship failed entirely with his first
half dozen prospects. He often says that if he had continued to work on them,
he might have deprived many others, who have since recovered, of their chance.
Suppose now you are making your second
visit to a man. He has read this volume and says he is prepared to go through
with the twelve steps of The Program of Recovery. Having had the experience
yourself, you can give him much practical advice.
Suggest he make his decision with you and tell you his story, but do not insist
upon it if he prefers to consult someone else.
He may be broke
and homeless. If he is, try to help him about getting
a job. Give him a little financial assistance, unless it would deprive your
family or creditors of money they should have. Perhaps you will want to take
the man into your home for a few days. But be sure you use discretion. Be
certain he will be welcomed by your family, and that he is not trying to impose
upon you for money, connections, or shelter. Permit that and you only harm him.
You will be making it possible for him to be insincere. You will be aiding in
his destruction, rather than his recovery.
Never avoid these responsibilities,
but be sure you are doing the right thing if you assume them.
Self-sacrifice for others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly
act once in a while isn't enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day,
if need be. It may mean the loss of many nights' sleep, great interference with
your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money
and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to
police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Your telephone may
jangle at any time of the day or night. Your wife will sometimes say she is
neglected. A drunk may smash the furniture in your home, or
burn a mattress. You may have to fight with him if he is violent. Sometimes you
will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction.
Another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance.
This sort of thing goes on constantly,
but we seldom allow an alcoholic to live in our homes for long at a time. It is
not good for him, and it sometimes creates serious complications in a family.
Though an alcoholic does not respond,
there is no reason why you should neglect his family. You should continue to be
friendly to them in every way. The family should be offered your way of life.
Should they accept, and practice spiritual principles, there is a much better
chance the head of the family will recover. And even though he continues to
drink, the family will find life more bearable.
For the type of alcoholic who is able and
willing to get well, little charity, in the ordinary sense of the word, is
needed or wanted. The men who cry for money and shelter before conquering
alcohol, are on the wrong track. Yet we do go to great extremes to provide each
other with these very things, when such action is warranted. This may seem
inconsistent, but it is not.
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It is not the matter of giving that is in
question, but when and how to give. That makes the difference between failure
and success. The minute we put our work on a social service plane,
the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God. He clamors for this or that,
claiming he cannot master alcohol until his material needs are cared for.
Nonsense. Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: job or no
job — wife or no wife — we simply do not stop drinking alcohol so long as we place dependence upon
other people ahead of dependence on God.
Burn the idea into the consciousness of
every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. No person on this earth
can stop his recovery from alcohol, or prevent his being supplied with whatever
is good for him. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house.
Now, the domestic problem: There may be
divorce, seperation, or just strained relations. When your prospect has made such
restitution as he can to his family, and has thoroughly explained to them the new
principles by which he is living, he should proceed to put those principles
into action at home. That is, if he is lucky enough to have a home. Though his
family be at fault in many respects, he should not be
concerned about that. He should concentrate on his own spiritual demonstration.
Argument and fault-finding are to be avoided like leprosy. In many homes this
is a difficult thing to do, but it must
be done if any results are to be expected. If persisted in for a few months,
the effect on a man's family is sure to be great. The most incompatible people
discover they have a basis upon which they can meet. Little by little the
family will see their own defects and admit them. These can then be discussed
in an atmosphere of helpfulness and friendliness.
After they have seen tangible results,
the family will perhaps want to join in the better way of life. These things
will come to pass naturally and in good time, provided, however, the alcoholic
continues to demonstrate that he can be
sober, considerate, and helpful, regardless or
what anyone says or does. Of course, we all fall much below this standard many
times. But we must try to repair the damage immediately lest we pay the penalty
by a spree.
If there be
divorce or seperation, there should be no undue haste
for the couple to get together. The man should be sure of his ground. The wife
should fully understand his new way of life. If their old relationship is to be
resumed, it must be on a better basis,
since the old one did not work. This means a new attitude and spirit all
around. Sometimes it is to the best interests of all concerned that a couple
remain apart. Obviously, no rule can be laid down. Let the alcoholic continue
his new way of life day by day. When the time for living together has come, it
will be apparent to both parties.
Let no alcoholic say he cannot recover
unless he has his family back. This just isn't so. In some cases
the wife will never come back for one reason or another. Remind your prospect
that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his
relationship with God. We have seen men get well whose families have not
returned at all. We have seen others slip when the family came back too soon.
Both you and the new prospect must day by day walk in the path of spiritual progress. If you
persist, remarkable things will happen to you. When we look back, we realize
that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were
better for us than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a
Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no
matter what your present circumstances!
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When working with a man and his family,
you must take care not to participate in their quarrels. You may spoil your
chance of being helpful if you do. But you may urge upon a man's family that he
has been a very sick person and should be treated accordingly. You should warn
them against arousing resentment or jealousy. You should point out that his defects of character are not going to disappear overnight.
Show them that he has entered upon a period of growth. Ask them to remember,
when they are impatient, the blessed fact of his sobriety.
If you have been successful in solving
your own domestic problems, tell the newcomer's family how that was
accomplished. In this way you can set them on the right track without becoming
critical of them. The story of how you and your wife settled your difficulties
is worth any amount of preaching or criticism.
Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can
do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. 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 mustn't 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.
Experience proves this is nonsense.
We meet these conditions every day. An
alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic
mind: there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance
for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an
Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman
who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the
alcohol problem.
Any scheme of combatting alcoholism which
proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the
alcoholic tries to shield himself, he may succeed for a time,
but will wind up with a bigger explosion than ever. Our wives and we
have tried these methods. These foolish attempts to do the impossible have
always failed.
So our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking, if we have a
legitimate reason for being there. That includes bars, nightclubs, dances,
receptions, weddings, even plain ordinary whoopee
parties. To a person who has had experience with an alcoholic, this may seem
like tempting Providence, but it isn't.
You will note that we made an important
qualification. Therefore, ask yourself on each occasion, "Have I any
legitimate social, business, or personal reason for going to this place? Am I
going to be helpful to anyone there? Could I be more useful or helpful by being
somewhere else?" If you answer these questions satisfactorily, you need have no apprehension. You may go or stay away, whatever
seems best. But be sure you are on solid spiritual ground before you start and
that your motive in going is thoroughly good. Do not
think of what you will get out of the occasion. Think
of what you can bring to it. But if you are spiritually shaky, you had better
work with another alcoholic instead!
You are not to sit with a long face in
places where there is drinking, sighing about the good old days. If it is a
happy occasion, try to increase the pleasure of those there; if a business occasion, go and attend to your business
enthusiastically. If you are with a person who wants to eat in a bar, by all
means go along. Let your friends know they are not to change their habits on
your account. At a proper time and place explain to all your friends why
alcohol disagrees with you. If you do this thoroughly, no decent person will
ask you to drink. While you were drinking, you were withdrawing from life
little by little. Now you are getting back into the life of this world. Don't
start to withdraw from life again just because your friends drink liquor.
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Your job now is to be at the place where
you may be of maximum helpfulness to others, so never
hesitate to go where there is drinking, if you can be helpful. You should not
hesitate to visit the most sordid spot on earth on such a mission. Keep on the
firing line of life with these motives, and God will keep you unharmed.
Many of us keep liquor in our homes. We
often need it to carry green recruits through a severe hangover. Some of us
still serve it to our friends in moderation, provided
they are people who do not abuse drinking. But some of us think we should not
serve liquor to anyone. We never argue this question. We feel that each family,
in the light of their own circumstances, ought to decide for themselves.
We are careful never to show intolerance
or hatred of drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an attitude
is not helpful to anyone. Every new alcoholic looks for this spirit among us
and is immensely relieved when he finds we are not witch-burners. A spirit of
intolerance might repel alcoholics whose lives would have been saved, had it
not been for our stupidity. We would not even do the cause of temperate
drinking any good, for not one drinker in a thousand is willing to be told
anything about alcohol by one who hates it.
Someday we hope that Alcoholics Anonymous
will help the public to a better realization of the gravity of the liquor
problem. We shall be of little use if our attitude is one of bitterness or
hostility. Drinkers will not stand for it.
After all, our troubles were of our own
making. Bottles were only a symbol. Besides, we have stopped flqhting anybody or anything. We have to!
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Chapter Eight
TO WIVES
With few exceptions, our book thus far
has spoken of men. But what we have said applies quite as much to women. Our
activities in behalf of women who drink are on the
increase. There is every evidence that women regain their health as readily as
men if they follow our suggestions.
But for every man who drinks others are
involved — the wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch; the mother and
father who see their son wasting away.
Among us are wives, relatives, and
friends whose problem has been solved, as well as some who have not yet found a
happy solution. We shall let the wives of Alcoholics Anonymous address the
wives of men who drink too much. What they say will apply to nearly everyone
bound by ties of blood or affection to an alcoholic.
- - - -
As wives of Alcoholics Anonymous, we want
you to sense that we understand you as perhaps few can. We want to analyze
mistakes we have made and help you to avoid them. We want to leave you with the
feeling that no situation is too difficult and no unhappiness too great to be
overcome.
We have traveled a rocky road; there is
no mistake about that. We have had long rendezvous with hurt pride,
frustration, self-pity, misunderstand, and fear. These are not pleasant
companions. We have been driven to maudlin sympathy, to bitter resentment. We
have veered from extreme to extreme, ever hoping that one day our loved ones would be themselves once more.
Our loyalty, and the desire that our
husbands hold up their heads and be like other men have begotten all sorts of
predicaments. We have been unselfish and self-sacrificing. We have told
innumerable lies to protect our pride and our husbands' reputations. We have
prayed, we have begged, we have been patient. We have struck out viciously. We
have run away. We have been hysterical. We have been terror stricken. We have
sought sympathy. We have had retaliatory love affairs with other men.
Our homes have been battle-grounds
many an evening. In the morning we have kissed
and made up. Our friends have counseled chucking the men and we have done so
with finality, only to be back in a little while, hoping, always hoping. Our
men have sworn great solemn oaths they were through drinking forever. We have
believed them when no one else could, or would. Then,
in days, weeks, or months, a fresh outburst.
We seldom had friends at our homes, never
knowing how or when the men of the house would appear. We could make few social
engagements. We came to live almost alone, unwanted by anyone. When we were
invited out, our husbands always sneaked so many drinks that they spoiled the
occasion. If, on the other hand, they took nothing, their self-pity made them
killjoys.
There was never financial security.
Positions were always in jeopardy or gone. An armored car could not have
brought the pay envelopes home. The checking account melted like snow in June.
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There were other women. How heart
breaking was this discovery; how cruel to be told they understood our men as we
did not!
The bill collectors; the sheriffs; the
angry taxi drivers; the policemen; the bums; the pals; and even the ladies he
brought home — our husbands thought we were so inhospitable. "Joykiller, nag, wet blanket" — that's what they said.
Next day they would be themselves again and we would forgive and try to forget.
We have tried to hold the love of our
children for their father. We have told small tots that father was sick, which
was much nearer the truth than we realized. They struck the children, kicked out door panels, smashed treasured crockery, and ripped the
keys out of pianos. In the midst of such pandemonium they may have rushed out
threatening to live with the other woman forever. In desperation, we have even
got tight ourselves — the drunk to end all drunks. The unexpected result was
that our husbands seemed to like it.
Perhaps at this point we got a divorce
and took the children home to father and mother. Then we were severely
criticized by our husband's parents for desertion. Usually
we did not leave. We stayed on and on. We finally sought employment ourselves
as destitution faced us and our families.
We began to ask
medical advice as the sprees got closer together. The alarming physical and
mental symptoms, the deepening pall of remorse, depression and inferiority that
settled down on our loved ones — these things terrified and distracted us. As
animals on a treadmill, we have patiently and wearily climbed, falling back in
exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground. Most of us have
entered the final stage with its commitment to health resorts, sanitariums,
hospitals, and jails. Sometimes there were screaming delirium and insanity.
Death was often near.
Under these conditions we naturally made
mistakes. Some of them rose out of ignorance of alcoholism. Sometimes we sensed
dimly that we were dealing with sick men. Had we fully understood the nature of
the alcoholic illness, we might have behaved differently.
How could men who loved their wives and
children be so unthinking, so callous, so cruel? There could be no love in such
persons, we thought. And just as we were being convinced of their
heartlessness, they would surprise us with fresh resolves and new attentions.
For a while they would be their old sweet selves, only to dash the new
structure of affection to pieces once more. Asked why they commenced to drink
again, they would reply with some silly excuse, or none. It was so baffling, so
heartbreaking. Could we have been so mistaken in the men we married? When
drinking, they were strangers. Sometimes they were so inaccessible that it
seemed as though a great wall had been built around them.
And even if they did not love their
families, how could they be so blind about themselves? What had become of their
judgment, their common sense, their will power? Why
could they not see that drink meant ruin to them? Why was it, when we pointed
out these dangers, that they agreed and then got drunk again immediately?
These are some of the questions which
race through the mind of every girl who has an alcoholic husband. We hope our
book has answered some of them. But now you will have seen that perhaps your
husband has been living in that strange world of alcoholism where everything is
distorted and exaggerated. You can see that he really does love you with his
better self. Of course, there is such a thing as incompatibility, but in nearly
every instance the alcoholic only seems to be unloving and inconsiderate; it is
usually because he is warped and sickened that he says and does these appalling
things. Today most of our men are better husbands and fathers than ever before
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Don't condemn your alcoholic husband no
matter what he says or does. He is just another very sick, unreasonable person.
Treat him, when you can, as though he had pneumonia. When he angers you,
remember that he is very ill.
There is an important exception to the
foregoing. We realize some men are thoroughly bad-intentioned, that no amount
of patience will make any difference. An alcoholic of this temperament will be
quick to use this chapter as a club over your head. Don't let him get away with
it. If you are positive he is one of this type you may feel you had better
leave. It is not right to let him ruin your life and the lives of your
children, especially when he has before him a way to stop his
drinking and abuse if he really wants to pay the price.
The problem with which you struggle
usually falls within one of four categories:
One: Your husband may be only a heavy
drinker. His drinking may be constant or it may be heavy only on certain
occasions. He spends too much money for liquor. It
slows him up mentally and physically, but he does not see it. Sometimes he is a
source of embarrassment to you and his friends. He is positive he can handle
his liquor, that it does him no harm, that drinking is necessary in his
business. He would be insulted if called an alcoholic.
This world is full of people like him. Some will moderate or stop altogether,
and some will not. Of those who keep on, a good number will become true
alcoholics after a while.
Two: Your husband is showing lack of
control. He is unable to stay on the water wagon, even when he wants to. He
often gets entirely out of hand when drinking. He admits this is true, but is obsessed with the idea that he will do better.
He has begun to try, with or without your cooperation, various means of
moderating or staying dry. He is beginning to lose his friends. His business
may suffer somewhat. He is worried at times, and is
becoming aware that he cannot drink like other people. He sometimes drinks in
the morning, and through the day also, to hold his nervousness in check. He is
remorseful after serious drinking bouts and tells you he wants to stop. But
when he gets over the spree, he begins to think once more how he can drink
moderately next time. This person is in danger. He has the earmarks of a real
alcoholic. Perhaps he can still tend to business fairly well. He has by no
means ruined everything. As we say among ourselves, "He wants to want to
stop. "
Three: This husband has gone much further
than husband number two. Though once like number two, he became worse. His
friends have slipped away, his home is a near-wreck,
and he cannot hold a position. Maybe the doctor has been called in, and the
weary round of sanitariums and hospitals has begun. He admits he cannot drink
like other people, but does not see why. He clings to
the notion that he will yet find a way to do so. He may have come to the point
where he desperately wants to stop but cannot. His case presents additional
questions which we shall try to answer for you. You can be quite hopeful of a
situation like this.
Four: You may have a husband of whom you
completely despair. He has been placed in one institution after another. He is
violent, or definitely insane, when drunk. Sometimes he drinks on the way home
from the hospital. Perhaps he has had delirium tremens. Doctors shake their
heads and advise you to have him committed. Maybe you have already been obliged
to put him away. This picture may not be as dark as it looks. Many of our
husbands were just as far gone. Yet they got well.
Let's now go back to husband number one.
Oddly enough, he is often difficult to deal with. He enjoys drinking. It stirs
his imagination. His friends feel closer over a
highball. Perhaps you enjoy drinking with him yourself when he doesn't
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go too far. You have passed happy
evenings together chatting and drinking before your fire. Perhaps you both like
parties which would be dull without liquor. We have enjoyed such evenings
ourselves; we had a good time. We know all about liquor as a social lubricant.
Some, but not all of us, think it has its advantages when reasonably used.
Your husband has begun to abuse alcohol.
The first principle of success is that you should never be angry. Even though
your husband becomes unbearable, and you have to leave him temporarily, you
should, if you can, go without rancor. Patience and good temper are vitally
necessary.
The next rule is that you should never
tell him what to do about his drinking. If he gets the idea that you are a nag
or a killjoy, your chance of accomplishing anything useful will be zero. He
will use that as an excuse to drink some more. He will tell you he is
misunderstood. This may lead to lonely evenings for you. He may seek someone to
console him — not always another man.
Be determined that your husband's
drinking is not going to spoil your relation with your
children or your friends. They need your companionship and your help. It is
possible to have a full and useful life, though your husband continues to
drink. We know women who are unafraid, even happy, under these conditions. Do
not set your heart on reforming your husband. You may be unable to do so, no
matter how hard you try.
We know these suggestions are not
impossible to follow, but you will save many a heartbreak if you can succeed in
observing them. Your husband will come to appreciate your reasonableness and
patience. This will lay the groundwork for a frank and friendly talk about his
liquor problem. Try to have him bring up the subject himself. Besure you are not critical during such a discussion.
Attempt instead, to put yourself in his place. Let him see that you want to be
helpful rather than critical.
When a discussion does arise, you might
suggest he read this book, or at least the chapter on alcoholism. Tell him you
have been worried, though perhaps needlessly. You think he ought to know the
subject better, as everyone should have a clear understanding of the risk he
takes if he drinks much. Show him you have confidence in his power to stop or
moderate. Say you do not want to be a wet blanket; that you only want him to
take care of his health. Thus you may succeed in
interesting him in alcoholism.
He probably has several alcoholics among
his own acquaintances. You might suggest that you both take an interest in
them. Drinkers like to help other drinkers. Your husband may be willing to talk
to one of them, perhaps over a highball.
If this kind of approach does not catch
your husband's interest, it may be best to drop the subject for a time, but
after a friendly talk your husband will usually revive the topic himself. This
may take patient waiting, but it will be worth it. Meanwhile you might try to
help the wife of another serious drinker. If you act upon these principles,
your husband may stop or moderate after a while.
Suppose, however, that your husband fits
the description of number two. The same principles which apply to husband
number one should be practiced. But after his next binge, ask him if he would
really like to get over drinking for good. Do not ask that he do it for you or
anyone else. Just would he like to?
The chances are he would. Show him your
copy of this book and tell him what you have found out about alcoholism. Show
him that the writers of the book understand, as only alcoholics can. Tell him
some of the interesting stories you have
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read. If you think he will be shy of our
spiritual remedy, ask him to look at the chapter on alcoholism. Then perhaps he
will be interested enough to continue.
If he is enthusiastic, cooperate with
him, though you, yourself, may not yet agree with all we say. If he is
lukewarm, or thinks he is not an alcoholic, leave him alone. Never urge him to
follow our program. The seed has been planted in his mind. He knows that over a
hundred men, much like himself, have recovered. But don't remind him of this
after he has been drinking, for he will be angry. Sooner or later, you are
likely to find him reading the book once more. Wait until repeated stumbling
convinces him he must act, for the more you hurry him, the longer his recovery
may be delayed.
If you have a number three husband, you
may be in luck. Being certain he wants to stop, you
can go to him with this volume as joyfully as though you had struck oil. He may
not share your enthusiasm, but he is practically sure to read the book, and he
may go for the program at once. If he does not, you will probably not have long
to wait. Again, you must not crowd him. Let him decide for himself. Cheerfully
see him through more sprees. Talk about his condition or this book only when he
raises the issue. In some cases it may be better to
let the family doctor present the book. The doctor can urge action without
arousing hostility. If your husband is otherwise a normal individual, your
chances are good at this stage.
You would suppose that men in the fourth
classification would be quite hopeless, but that is not so. Many of Alcoholics
Anonymous were like that. Everybody had given them up. Defeat seemed certain.
Yet often such men have spectacular and powerful recoveries.
There are exceptions. Some men have been
so impaired by alcohol that they cannot stop. Sometimes there are cases where
alcoholism is complicated by other disorders. A good doctor or psychiatrist can
tell you whether these complications are serious. In any event, see that your
husband gets this book. His reaction may be one of enthusiasm. If he is already
committed to an institution but can convince you and your doctor that he means
business, you should give him a chance to try our method, unless the doctor thinks
his mental condition abnormal or dangerous. We make this recommendation with
some confidence. About a year ago a certain state institution released six
chronic alcoholics. It was fully expected they would all be back in a few
weeks. Only one of them has returned. The others had no relapse at all. The
power of God goes deep!
You may have the reverse situation on
your hands. Perhaps you have a husband who is at large, but who should be
committed. Some men cannot, or will not get over
alcoholism. When they become too dangerous, we think the kind thing is to lock
them up. The wives and children of such men suffer horribly, but not less than
the men themselves.
As a rule, an institution is a dismal
place, and sometimes it is not conducive to recovery. It is a pity that chronic
alcoholics must often mingle with the insane. Some day we hope our group will
be instrumental in changing this condition. Many of our husbands spent weary
years in institutions. Though more reluctant than most people to place our men
there, we sometimes suggest that it be done. Of course, a good doctor should
always be consulted.
But sometimes you must start life anew.
We know women who have done it. If such women adopt our way of life, their road
will be smoother.
If your husband is a drinker, you worry
over what other people are thinking. You hate to meet your friends. You draw
more and more into yourself. You think
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everyone is talking about conditions at
your home. You avoid the subject of drinking, even with your own parents. You
do not know what to tell the children. When your husband is bad, you become a
trembling recluse, wishing the telephone had never been invented.
We find that most of this embarrassment
is unnecessary. While you need not discuss your husband, you can quietly let
your friends know what the trouble is. Sometimes it is wise to talk with his
employer. But you must be on guard not to embarrass or harm your husband.
When you have carefully explained to such
people that he is a sick person, little more to blame than other men who drink
but manage their liquor better, you will have created a new atmosphere.
Barriers which have sprung up between you and your friends will disappear with
the growth of sympathetic understanding. You will no longer be self-conscious,
nor feel that you must apologize as though your husband were a weak character.
He may be anything but that. Your new courage, good nature, and lack of self-consciousness
wilt do wonders for your social status.
The same principle applies in dealing
with the children. Unless they actually need protection from their father, it
is best not to take sides in any argument he has with them while drinking. Use
your energies to promote a better understanding all around. Then that terrible
tension which grips the home of every problem drinker will be lessened.
Frequently you have felt obliged to tell
your husband's employer and his friends that he was sick, when as a matter of
fact he was tight. Avoid answering these inquiries as much as you can. Whenever
possible, let your husband explain. Your desire to protect him should not cause
you to lie to people, when they have a right to know where he is and what he is
doing. Discuss this with him when he is sober and in good spirits. Ask him to
promise that he will not place you in such a position again. But be careful not
to be resentful about the last time he did so.
There is another paralyzing fear. You are
afraid your husband will lose his position; you are thinking of the disgrace
and hard times which will befall you and the children. This experience may come
to you. Or you may already have had it several times. Should it happen again,
regard it in a different light. Maybe it will prove a blessing! It may convince
your husband he wants to stop drinking forever. And now you know that he can
stop if he will! Time after time, this apparent calamity has been a boon to us,
for it opened up a path which led to the discovery of God.
We have elsewhere remarked how much
better life is when lived on a spiritual plane. If God can solve the age-old
riddle of alcoholism, he can solve your problems too. We wives found that, like
everybody else, we were afflicted with pride, self-pity, vanity, and all the
things which go to make up the self-centered person; and we were not above
selfishness or dishonesty. As our husbands began to apply spiritual principles
in their lives, we began to see the desirability of doing so too.
At first, some of us did not believe that
we needed this help. We thought, on the whole, we were pretty good women,
capable of being nicer if our husbands stopped drinking. But it was a silly
idea that we were too good to need God. Now we try to put spiritual principles
to work in every department of our lives. When we do that, we find it solves
our problems too: the ensuing lack of fear, worry and hurt feelings is a
wonderful thing. We urge you to try our program, for nothing will be so helpful
to your husband as the radically changed attitude toward him which God will
show you how to have. Go along with your husband if you possibly can.
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If you and your husband find a solution
for the pressing problem of drink, you are, of course, going to be very happy.
But all problems will not be solved at once. Seed has started to sprout in a
new soil, but growth has only begun. In spite of your new-found happiness,
there will be ups and downs. Many of the old problems will still be with you.
This is as it should be.
The faith and sincerity of both you and
your husband will be put to the test. You must regard these work-outs
as part of your education, for thus you will be learning to live as you were
intended to live. You will make mistakes, but if you are in earnest, they will
not drag you down. Instead, you will capitalize them. A better way of life will
emerge when they are overcome.
Some of the snags you will encounter are
irritation, hurt-feelings, resentments. Your husband will sometimes be
unreasonable, and you will want to criticize. Starting from a speck on the
domestic horizon, great thunderclouds of dispute may gather. These family
dissensions are very dangerous, especially to your husband. Often you must
carry the burden of avoiding them or keeping them under control. Never forget
that resentment is a deadly hazard to an alcoholic. We do not mean that you
have to agree with your husband wherever there is an honest difference of
opinion. Just be careful not to disagree in a resentful or critical spirit.
You and your husband will find that you
can dispose of serious problems easier than you can the trivial ones. Next time
you and he have a heated discussion, no matter what the subject, it should be
the privilege of either to smile and say "This is getting serious. I'm
sorry I got disturbed. Let's talk about it later. " If your husband is
trying to live on a spiritual basis, he will also be doing everything in his
power to avoid disagreement or contention.
Your husband knows he owes you more than
sobriety. He wants to make good. Yet you must not expect too much. His ways of
thinking and doing are the habits of years. Patience, tolerance, understanding,
and love are your watchwords. Show him these things in yourself and they will
be reflected back to you from him. Live and let live is the rule. If you both
show a willingness to remedy your own defects, there will be little need to
criticize each other.
We women carry with us a picture of the
ideal man, the sort of chap we would like our husbands to be. It is the most
natural thing in the world, once his liquor problem is solved, to feel that he
will now measure up to that cherished vision. The chances are he will not, for
like yourself, he is just beginning his development. Be patient.
Another feeling we are very likely to
entertain is one of resentment that love and loyalty could not cure our
husbands of alcoholism. We do not like the thought that the contents of a book,
or the work of another alcoholic, has accomplished in a few weeks the end for
which we struggled for years. At such moments we forget that alcoholism is an
illness over which we could not possibly have had any power. Your husband will
be the first to say it was your devotion and care which brought him to the
point where he could have a spiritual experience. Without you he would have
gone to pieces long ago. When resentful thoughts come, pause and count your
blessings. After all, your family is reunited, alcohol is no longer a problem,
and you and your husband are working together toward an undreamed-of future.
Still another difficulty is that you may
become jealous of the attention he bestows on other people, especially
alcoholics. You have been starving for
his companionship, yet he spends long hours helping other men and their
families. You feel he should now be yours. The fact is that he must work with
other people to maintain his own sobriety. Sometimes he will be so interested
that he becomes really neglectful. Your house is filled with strangers. You may
not like some of
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them. He gets stirred up about their
troubles, but not at all about yours. It will do no good if you point that out
and urge more attention for yourself. It is a real mistake if you dampen his
enthusiasm for alcoholic work. You should join in his efforts as much as you
possibly can. Direct some of your thought to the wives of his new alcoholic
friends. They need the counsel and love of a woman who has gone through what
you have.
It is probably true that you and your
husband have been living too much alone, for drinking almost isolated many of
us. Therefore, you need fresh interests and a great cause to live for as much
as your husband. If you cooperate, rather than complain, you will find that his
excess enthusiasm will tone down. Both of you will awaken to a new sense of
responsibility for others. You, as well as your husband, must think of what you
can put into life, instead of how much you can take out. Inevitably your lives
will be fuller for doing so. You will lose the old life to find one much
better.
Perhaps your husband will make a fair
start on the new basis, but just as things are going beautifully, he dismays
you be coming home drunk. If you are satisfied he really wants to get over
drinking, you need not be alarmed. Though it is infinitely better he have no
relapse at all, as has been true with many of our men, it is by no means a bad
thing in some cases. Your husband will see at once that he must redouble his
spiritual activities if he expects to survive. If he adopts this view, the slip
will help him. You need not remind him of his spiritual deficiency — he will
know of it. Cheer him up and ask him how you can be still more helpful.
Even your hatred must go. The slightest
sign of fear or intolerance will lessen your husband's chance of recovery. In a
weak moment he may take your dislike of his high-stepping friends as one of
those insanely trivial excuses to drink.
Never, never try to arrange his life, so
as to shield him from temptation. The slightest disposition on your part to
guide his appointments or his affairs so he will not be tempted will be
noticed. Make him feel absolutely free to come and go as he likes. This is
important. If he gets drunk, don't blame yourself. God has either removed your
husband's liquor problem, or He has not. If not, it had better be found out
right away. Then you and your husband can get right down to fundamentals. If a
repetition is to be prevented, place the problem, along with everything else,
in God's hands.
We realize we have been giving you much
direction and advice. We may have seemed "preachy". If that is so, we
are sorry, for we ourselves, don't care for people who preach. But what we have
related is based upon experience, some of it painful. We had to learn these
things the hard way. That is why we are anxious that you understand,
that you avoid these unnecessary difficulties.
So to you out there — who may soon be with us — we say
"Good luck and God bless you!"
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Chapter Nine
THE FAMILY AFTERWARD
Our women folk have suggested certain
attitudes a wife may take with the husband who is recovering. Perhaps they
created the impression that he is to be wrapped in cotton wool and placed on a
pedestal. Successful readjustment means the opposite. All members of the family
must meet upon the common ground of tolerance, understanding, and love. This
involves a process of deflation. The alcoholic, his wife, his children, his
"in-laws", each one is likely to have fixed ideas about the family's
attitude towards himself or herself. Each is interested in having his or her
wishes respected. The more one member of a family demands that the other
concede to him, the more resentful they become. This makes for discord and
unhappiness.
Any why? Is it not because each wants to play the lead? Is not each trying to arrange the
family show to his liking? Is he not unconsciously trying to see what he can
take from the family life, rather than give?
Cessation of drinking is but the first
step away from a highly strained, abnormal condition. A doctor said the other
day, "Years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or
child neurotic. The entire family is, to some extent, ill. " Let families
realize, as they start their journey, that all will not be fair weather. Each
in his turn will be footsore and will straggle. There will be alluring
shortcuts and by-paths down which they may wander and lose their way.
Suppose we tell you some of the obstacles
a family will meet; suppose we suggest how they may be avoided — even converted
to good use for others. The family of an alcoholic longs for the return of
happiness and security. They remember when father was romantic, thoughtful and
successful. Today's life is measured against that of other years and, when it
falls short, the family may be unhappy.
Family confidence in dad is rising high.
The good old days will soon be back, they think. Sometimes they demand that dad
bring them back instantly! God, they believe, almost owes this recompense on a
long overdue account. But the head of the house has spent years in pulling down
the structures of business, romance, friendship, health — these things are now
ruined or damaged. It will take time to clear away the wreck. Though old
buildings will eventually be replaced by finer ones, the new structures will
take years to complete.
Father knows he is to blame; it may take
him many seasons of hard work to be restored financially, but he shouldn't be
reproached. Perhaps he will never have much money again. But the wise family
will admire him for what he is trying to be, rather than for what he is trying
to get.
Now and then the family will be plagued
by spectres from the past, for the drinking career of
almost every alcoholic has been marked by escapades, funny, humiliating,
shameful, or tragic. The first impulse will be to bury these skeletons in a
dark closet and padlock the door. The family may be obsessed with the idea that
future happiness can be based only upon forgetfulness of the past. Such a view
is quite self-centered and in direct conflict with the new way of life.
Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the
effect that experience is the thing of
supreme value in life. That is true only if one is willing to turn the past to
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good account. We grow by our willingness
to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets. The alcoholic's past
thus becomes the principal asset of the family, and frequently it is the only
one!
This painful past may be of infinite
value to other families still struggling with their problem. We think each
family which has been relieved owes something to those which have not, and when
the occasion requires, each member of it who has found God, should be only too
willing to bring former mistakes, no matter how grievous, out of their hiding
places. Showing others who suffer how we were given victory, is the very thing
which makes life seem so worth while to us now. Cling to the thought that, in
God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have — the key to
life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.
It is possible to dig up past misdeeds so
they become a blight, a veritable plague. For example, we know of situations in
which the alcoholic or his wife have had love affairs. In the first flush of
spiritual experience they forgave each other and drew
closer together. The miracle of reconciliation was at hand. Then, under one
provocation or another, the aggrieved one would unearth the old affair and
angrily cast its ashes about. A few of us have had these growing pains and they
hurt a great deal. Husbands and wives have sometimes been obliged to separate
for a time until new perspective, new victory over hurt pride, could be rewon.
In most cases, the alcoholic survived this ordeal without relapse, but not
always. So our rule is that unless some good and
useful purpose is to be served, past occurrences are not discussed.
We families of Alcoholics Anonymous have
few secrets. Everyone knows all about everyone else. This is a condition which,
in ordinary life, would produce untold grief. There would be scandalous gossip,
laughter at the expense of other people, and a tendency to take advantage of
intimate information. Among us, these are rare occurrences.
We do talk about each other a great deal
but almost invariably temper such talk by a spirit of love and tolerance. We
discuss another's shortcomings in the hope that some new idea of helpfulness
may come out of the conversation. Thy cynic might say we are good because we
have to be.
Another rule we observe carefully is that
we do not relate intimate experiences of another person unless we are sure he
would approve. We find it better, when possible, to stick to our own stories, A
man may criticize or laugh at himself and it will affect others favorably, but
criticism or ridicule of him coming from another often produces the contrary
effect. Members of a family should watch such matters carefully, for one
careless, inconsiderate remark has been known to raise the very devil. We alcoholics
are sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time to outgrow that serious
handicap.
Most alcoholics are enthusiasts. They run
to extremes. At the beginning of recovery a man will
take, as a rule, one of two directions. He may either plunge into a frantic
attempt to get on his feet in business, or he may be so enthralled by his new
life that he talks or thinks of little else. In either case certain family
problems will arise. With these we have experience galore.
We pointed out the danger he runs if he
rushes headlong at his economic problem. The family will be affected also,
pleasantly at first, as they feel their money troubles are to be solved, then
not so pleasantly as they find
themselves neglected. Dad may be tired at
night and pre-occupied by day. He may take small interest in the
children and may show irritation when reproved for his delinquencies. If not
irritable, he may seem dull and boring, not gay and affectionate, as
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the family would like him to be. Mother
may complain of inattention. They are all disappointed, and
soon let him feel it. Beginning with such complaints, a barrier arises. He is
straining every nerve to make up for lost time. He is striving to recover
fortune and reputation and thinks he is doing very well.
Mother and children don't think so.
Having been wantonly neglected and misused in the past, they think father owes
them more than they are getting. They want him to make a fuss over them. They
expect him to give them the nice times they used to have before he drank, and
to show his contrition for what they suffered. But dad doesn't give freely of
himself. Resentment grows. He becomes still less communicative. Sometimes he
explodes over a trifle. The family is mystified. They criticize, pointing out
how he is falling down on his spiritual program.
This sort of thing must be stopped. Both
father and the family are wrong, though each side may have some justification.
It is of little use to argue and only makes the impasse worse. The family must
realize that dad, though marvelously improved, is still a sick man. They should
thank God he is sober and able to be of this world once more. Let them praise
his progress. Let them remember that his drinking wrought all kinds of damage
that may take long to repair. If they sense these things, they will not take so
seriously his periods of crankiness, depression, or apathy, which will
disappear when there is tolerance, love, and spiritual understanding.
The head of the house ought to remember
that he is mainly to blame for what befell his home. He can scarcely square the
account in his lifetime. But he must see the danger of over-concentration on
financial success. Although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, we
found we could not place money first. For us, material well-being always
followed spiritual progress; it never preceded.
Since the home has suffered more than
anything else, it is well that a man exert himself there. He is not likely to
get far in any direction if he fails to show unselfishness and love under his
own roof. We know there are difficult wives and families, but the man who is
getting over alcoholism must remember they are sick folk too, and that he did
much to make them worse.
As each member of a resentful family
begins to see his shortcomings and admits them to the others, he lays a basis
for helpful discussion. These family talks will be constructive if they can be
carried on without heated argument, self-pity, self-justification, or resentful
criticism. Little by little, mother and children will see they ask too much,
and father will see he gives too little. Giving, rather than getting, will
become the guiding principle.
Assume now that father has,
at the outset, a stirring spiritual experience. Over-night, as it were, he is a
changed man. He becomes a religious enthusiast. He is unable to focus on
anything else. As soon as his sobriety begins to be taken as a matter of
course, the family may look at their strange new dad with apprehension, then
with irritation. There is talk about spiritual matters morning, noon and night.
He may demand that the family find God for themselves in a hurry,
or exhibit amazing indifference to them and say he is above worldly
considerations. He tells mother, who has been religious all her life, that she
doesn't know what its all about, and that she had better get his brand of
spirituality while there is yet time.
When father takes this tack, the family
may react unfavorably. They are jealous of a God who has stolen dad's
affections. While grateful that he drinks no more, they do not like the idea
that God has accomplished the miracle where they failed. They often forget
father was beyond human aid. They do not see why their love and devotion
did not straighten him out. Dad is not
so spiritual after all, they say.
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If he means to right his past wrongs, why
all this concern for everyone in the world but his family? What about his talk
that God will take care of them? They suspect father is a bit balmy!
He is not so unbalanced as they might
think. Many of us have experienced dad's elation. We have indulged in spiritual
intoxication. Like gaunt prospectors, belts drawn in over our last ounce of
food, our pick struck gold. Joy at our release from a lifetime of frustration
knew no bounds. Father sees he has struck something better than gold. For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself. He may
not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay
dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving
away the entire product.
If the family cooperates, dad will soon
see that he is suffering from a distortion of values. He will perceive that his
spiritual growth is lopsided, that for an average man like himself, a spiritual
life which does not include his family obligations may not be so perfect after
all. If the family will appreciate that dad's current behavoir
is but a phase of his development, all will be well. In the midst of an
understanding and sympathetic family, these vagaries of dad's spiritual infancy
will quickly disappear.
The opposite may happen should the family
condemn and criticize. Dad may feel that for years his drinking has placed him
on the wrong side of every argument, but that now he has become a superior
person, with God on his side. If the family persists in criticism, this fallacy
may take a still greater hold on father. Instead of treating the family as he
should, he may retreat further into himself and feel he has spiritual
justification for so doing.
Though the family does not fully agree
with dad's spiritual activities, they should let him assume leadership. Even if
he displays a certain amount of neglect and irresponsibility towards the
family, it is well to let him go as far as he likes in helping other
alcoholics. During those first days of convalescence, this will do more to
insure his sobriety than anything else. Though some of his manifestations are
alarming and disagreeable, dad will be on a firmer foundation than the man who
is placing business or professional success ahead of spiritual development. He
will be less likely to drink again, and anything is preferable to that.
Those of us who have spent much time in
the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually seen the childishness of
it. This dream world has been replaced by a great sense of purpose, accompanied
by a growing consciousness of the power of God in our lives. We have come to
believe God would like us to keep our heads in the clouds with Him, but that
our feet ought to be firmly planted on earth, nevertheless. That is where our
fellow travelers are, and that is where our work must be done. These are the realities
for us. We have found nothing incompatible between a powerful spiritual
experience, and a life of sane and happy usefulness.
One more suggestion: Whether the family
has spiritual convictions or not, they may do well to examine the principles by
which the alcoholic member is trying to live. They can hardly fail to approve
these simple principles, though the head of the house still fails somewhat in
practicing them. Nothing will help the man who is off on a spiritual tangent so
much as the wife who adopts the self-same program, making a better practical
use of it.
There will be still other profound
changes in the household. Liquor incapacitated father for so many years that
mother became head of the house. She met these responsibilities gallantly. By
force of circumstances, she was obliged to treat father as a sick or wayward
child. Even when he wanted to assert himself, he could not, for his drinking
placed him constantly in the wrong. Mother made all the plans
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and gave the directions. When sober,
father usually obeyed. Thus mother, through no fault of her own, became
accustomed to wearing the family trousers. Father, coming suddenly to life
again, often begins to assert himself. This means trouble, unless the family
watches for these tendencies in each other and come to a friendly agreement
about them.
Drinking isolates most homes from the
outside world, so the family was used to having father around a great deal. He
may have laid aside for years all normal activities — clubs, civic duties,
sports. When he renews interest in such things, a feeling of jealousy may
arise. The family may feel they hold a mortgage on dad, so big that no equity
should be left for outsiders. Instead of developing new channels of activity
for themselves, mother and children may demand that he stay home and make up
the deficiency.
At the very beginning, the couple ought
to frankly face the fact that each will have to yield here and there, if the
family is going to play an effective part in the new life. Father will
necessarily spend much time with other alcoholics, but this activity should be
balanced. New acquaintenances who know nothing of
alcoholism might be made and thoughtful consideration given their needs. The
problems of the community might engage attention. Though the family has no
religious connections, they may do well to make contact with,
or take membership in a religious body.
Alcoholics who have derided religious
people will sometimes be helped by such contacts. Being possessed of a
spiritual experience, the alcoholic will find he has much in common with these
people, though he may differ with them on many matters. If he does not argue
and forget that men find God in many ways, he will make new friends,
and is sure to find new avenues of usefulness and pleasure. He and his
family can be a bright spot in such congregations. He may bring new hope and
new courage to many a priest, minister, or rabbi, who gives his all to minister
to our troubled world. We intend the foregoing as a helpful suggestion only. So
far as we are concerned, there is nothing obligatory about it. As a
non-denominational group, we cannot make up people's minds for them. Each
individual must consult his own conscience.
We have been speaking to you of serious,
sometimes tragic things. We have been dealing with alcohol in its worst aspect.
But we aren't a glum lot. If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our
existence, they wouldn't want it. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. We try
not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the
world's troubles on our shoulders. When we see a man sinking into the mire that
is alcoholism, we give him first and and place
everything we have at his disposal. For his sake, we do recount and almost
relive the horrors of our past. But those of us who have tried to shoulder the
entire burden and trouble of others, find we are soon overcome by them.
So we think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are
sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic
experience out of the past. But why shouldn't we laugh? We are the victors, and have been given the power to help others.
Everybody knows that those in bad health,
and those who seldom play, do not laugh much. So let each family play together
or separately, as much as their circumstances warrant. We are sure God wants us
to be happy, joyous, and released. We cannot subscribe to the belief that this
life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us. But it is
clear that we made our own misery. God didn't do it. Avoid then, the deliberate
manufacture of misery, and when trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize it as an
opportunity to demonstrate His omnipotence.
Now about health: A body badly burned by
alcohol does not often recover over-
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night, nor do twisted
thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling. We are convinced that a
spiritual mode of living is a most powerful health restorative. We, who have
recovered from serious drinking, are miracles of mental health. But we have
also seen remarkable transformations in our bodies. Hardly one of our crowd now shows any mark of dissipation.
But this does not mean that we disregard
human health measures. God has abundantly supplied this world with fine
doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds. Do not hesitate to
take your health problems to such a person. Most of them give freely of
themselves, that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and bodies. Try to
remember that though God has wrought miracles among us, we should never
belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist. Their services are often indispensable
in treating a newcomer and following his case afterward.
A word about sex relations. Alcohol is so
sexually stimulating to some men that they have over-indulged. Couples are
occasionally dismayed to find that when drinking is stopped, the man tends to
be impotent. Unless the reason is understood, there may be an emotional upset.
Some of us had this experience, only to enjoy, in a few months, a finer
intimacy than ever. There should be no hesitancy in consulting a doctor or phychologist if this condition persists. We do not know of
any case where this difficulty lasted long.
The alcoholic may find it hard to
re-establish friendly relations with his children. Their young minds were
impressionable while he was drinking. Without saying so, they may cordially
hate him for what he has done to them and to their mother. The poor children
are sometimes dominated by a pathetic hardness and cynicism. They cannot seem
to forgive and forget. This may hang on for months, long after their mother has
accepted dad's new way of living and thinking.
Father had better be sparing of his
correction or criticism of them while they are in this frame of mind. He had
better not urge his new way of life on them too soon. In time they will see
that he is a new man and in their own way they will let him know it. When this
happens, they can be invited to join in morning meditation, then they can take
part in the daily discussion without rancor or bias. From that point on,
progress will be rapid. Marvelous results often follow such a reunion.
Whether the family goes on a spiritual
basis or not, the alcoholic member must. The others must be convinced by his
changed life beyond a shadow of a doubt. He must lead the way. Seeing is
believing to most families who have lived with a drinker.
Here is a case in point: One of our
friends is a heavy smoker and coffee drinker. There was no doubt he
over-indulged. Seeing this, and meaning to be helpful, his wife commenced to
admonish him about it. He admitted he was overdoing these things,
but frankly said that he was not ready to stop. His wife is one of those
persons who really feel there is something rather sinful about these
commodities, so she nagged, and her intolerance finally threw him into a fit of
anger. He got drunk.
Of course our friend was wrong — dead wrong. He had to painfully admit that and
mend his spiritual fences. Though he is now a most effective member of
Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes cigarettes and drinks coffee, but neither
his wife nor anyone else stands in judgment. She sees she was wrong to make a
burning issue out of such a matter when his more serious ailments were being
rapidly cured.
First things first! We have two little
mottoes which are apropos. Here they are: "LIVE AND LET LIVE" and
"EASY DOES IT".
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Chapter Ten
TO EMPLOYERS
One of our friends, whose gripping story
you have read, has spent much of his life in the world of big business. He has
hired and fired hundreds of men. He knows the alcoholic as the employer sees
him. His present views ought to prove exceptionally useful to business men everywhere.
But let him tell you:
I was at one time assistant manager of a
corporation department employing sixty-six hundred men. One day my secretary
came in saying that Mr. B— insisted on speaking with me. I told her to say that
I was not interested. I had warned this man several times that he had but one
more chance. Not long afterward he had called me from Hartford on two
successive days, so drunk he could hardly speak. I told him he was through —
finally and forever.
My secretary returned to say that it was
not Mr. B— on the phone; it was Mr. B—'s brother, and he wished to give me a
message. I still expected a plea for clemency, but these words came through the
receiver: "I just wanted to tell you Paul jumped from a hotel window in
Hartford last Saturday. He left us a note saying you were the best boss he ever
had, and that you were not to blame in any way. "
Another time, as I opened a letter which
lay on my desk, a newspaper clipping fell out. It was the obituary of one of
the best salesman I ever had. After two weeks of
drinking, he had placed his foot on the trigger of a loaded shotgun — the
barrel was in his mouth. I had discharged him for drinking six weeks before.
Still another experience: A woman's voice
came faintly over long distance from Virginia. She wanted to know if her
husband's company insurance was still in force. Four days before he had hanged
himself in his woodshed. I had been obliged to discharge him for drinking,
though he was brilliant, alert, and one of the best organizers I have ever
known.
Here were three exceptional men lost to
this world because I did not understand as I do now. Then I became an alcoholic
myself! And but for the intervention of an understanding person, I might have
followed in their footsteps. My downfall cost the business community unknown
thousands of dollars, for it takes real money to train a man for an executive
position. This kind of waste goes on unabated. Our business fabric is shot
through with it and nothing will stop it but better understanding all around.
You, an employer, want to understand.
Nearly every modern employer feels a moral responsibility for the well-being of
his help, and he usually tries to meet these responsibilities. That he has not
always done so for the alcoholic is easily understood. To him the alcoholic has
often seemed to be a fool of the first magnitude. Because of the employee's
special ability, or of his own strong personal attachment to him, the employer
has sometimes kept such a man at work long beyond the time he ordinarily would.
Some employers have tried every known remedy. More often, however, there is
very little patience and tolerance. And we, who have imposed on the best of
employers, can scarcely blame them if they have been short with us.
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Here, for instance, is a typical example:
An officer of one of the largest banking institutions in America knows I no
longer drink. One day he told me about an executive of the same bank, who, from
his description, was undoubtedly alcoholic. This seemed to me like an
opportunity to be helpful So I spent a good two hours talking about alcoholism,
the malady. I described the symptoms and supported my statements with plenty of
evidence. His comment was: "Very interesting. But I'm sure this man is
done drinking. He has just returned from a three-months' leave of absence, had
taken a cure, looks fine, and to clinch the matter, the board of directors told
him this was his last chance. "
My rejoinder was that if I could afford
it, I would bet him a hundred to one the man would go on a bigger bust than
ever. I felt this was inevitable and that the bank was doing a possible
injustice. Why not bring the man in contact with some of our alcoholic crowd?
He might have a chance. I pointed out 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. Why not at least afford him an opportunity to
hear my story? "Oh no", said my friend, "this chap is either
through with liquor, or he is minus a job. If he has your will power and guts,
he will make the grade. "
I wanted to throw up my hands in
discouragement, for I saw that my banking acquaintance had missed the point
entirely. He simply could not believe that his brother-executive suffered from
a deadly malady. There was nothing to do but wait.
Presently the man did slip and, of
course, was fired. Following his discharge, our group contacted him. Without
much ado, he accepted our principles and procedure. He is undoubtedly on the
high road to recovery. To me, this incident illustrates a lack of understanding
and knowledge on the part of employers — lack of understanding as to what
really ails the alcoholic, and lack of knowledge as to what part employers
might profitably take in salvaging their sick employees.
To begin with, I think you employers
would do well to disregard your own drinking experience, or lack of it. Whether
you are a hard drinker, a moderate drinker, or a teetotaler, you have but
little notion of the inner workings of the alcoholic mind. Instead, you may
have some pretty strong opinions, perhaps prejudices, based upon your own
experiences. Those of you who drink moderately are almost certain to be more
annoyed with an alcoholic than a total abstainer would be. Drinking
occasionally, and understanding your own reactions, it is possible for you to
become quite sure of many things, which, so far as the alcoholic is concerned,
are not always so.
As a moderate drinker, you can take your
liquor or leave it alone. Whenever you want to, you can control your drinking.
Of an evening, you can go on a mild bender, get up in the morning, shake your
head, and go to business. To you, liquor is no real problem. You cannot see why
it should be to anyone else, save the spineless and stupid.
When dealing with an alcoholic, you have
to fight an ingrained annoyance that he could be so weak, stupid and
irresponsible. Even when you understand the malady better, you may still have
to check this feeling and remember that your employee is very ill, being seldom
as weak and irresponsible as he appears.
Take a look at the alcoholic in your
organization. Is he not usually brilliant, fast-thinking, imaginative and
likeable? When sober, does he not work hard and have a knack of getting things
done? Review his qualities and ask yourself whether he would be worth
retaining, if sober. And do you owe him the same obligation you feel toward
other sick employees? Is he worth salvaging? If your decision is yes, whether
the reason be humanitarian, or business, or both, then you will wish to know
what to do.
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The first part has to do with you. Can
you stop feeling that you are dealing only with habit, with stubborness,
or a weak will? If you have difficulty about that I suggest you re-read
chapters two and three of this book, where the alcoholic sickness is discussed
at length. You, as a business man, know better than
most that when you deal with any problem, you must know what it is. Having
conceded that your employee is ill, can you forgive him for what he has done in
the past? Can you shelve the resentment you may hold because of his past
absurdities? Can you fully appreciate that the man has been a victim of crooked
thinking, directly caused by the action of alcohol on his brain?
I well remember the shock I received when
a prominent doctor in Chicago told me of cases where pressure of the spinal
fluid actually ruptured the brain from within. No wonder an alcoholic is
strangely irrational. Who wouldn't be, with such a fevered brain? Normal
drinkers are not so handicapped.
Your man has probably been trying to
conceal a number of scrapes, perhaps pretty messy ones. They may disgust you.
You may be puzzled by them, being unable to understand how such a seemingly above board chap could be so involved. But you can generally
charge these, no matter how bad, to the abnormal action of alcohol on his mind.
When drinking, or getting over a bout, an alcoholic, sometimes the model of
honesty when normal, will do incredible things. Afterward, his revulsion will
be terrible. Nearly always, these antics indicate nothing more than temporary abberations and you should so treat them.
This is not to say that all alcoholics
are honest and upright when not drinking. Of course
that isn't so, and you will have to be careful that such people don't impose on
you. Seeing your attempt to understand and help, some men will try to take
advantage of your kindness. If you are sure your man does not want to stop, you
may as well discharge him, the sooner the better. You are not doing him a favor
by keeping him on. Firing such an individual may prove a blessing to him. It
may be just the jolt he needs. I know, in my own particular case, that nothing
my company could have done would have stopped me, for so long as I was able to
hold my position, I could not possibly realize how serious my situation was.
Had they fired me first, and had they then taken steps to see that I was
presented with the solution contained in this book, I might have returned to
them six months later, a well man.
But there are many men who want to stop
right now, and with them you can go far. If you make a start, you should be
prepared to go the limit, not in the sense that any great expense or trouble is
to be expected, but rather in the matter of your own attitude, your
understanding treatment of the case.
Perhaps you have such a man in mind. He
wants to quit drinking, and you want to help him, even if it be only a matter
of good business. You know something of alcoholism. You see that he is mentally
and physically sick. You are willing to overlook his past performances. Suppose
you call the man in and go at him like this:
Hit him point blank with the thought that
you know all about his drinking, that it must stop. Say you appreciate his
abilities, would like to keep him, but cannot, if he continues to drink. That
you mean just what you say. And you should mean it too!
Next, assure him that you are not
proposing to lecture, moralize, or condemn; that if you have done so formerly,
it is because you misunderstood. Say, if you possibly can, that you have no
hard feeling toward him. At this point, bring out the idea of alcoholism, the
sickness. Enlarge on that fully. Remark that you have been looking into the
matter. You are sure of what you say, hence your change of attitude, hence your
willingness to deal with the problem as though it were a disease. You are
willing to look at your man as a gravely-ill person, with this qualification —
being
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perhaps fatally ill, does your man want
to get well, and right now? You ask because many alcoholics, being warped and
drugged, do not want to quit. But does he? Will he take every necessary step,
submit to anything to get well, to stop drinking forever?
If he says yes, does he really mean it,
or down inside does he think he is fooling you, and that after rest and
treatment he will be able to get away with a few drinks now and then? Probe
your man thoroughly on these points. Be satisfied he is not deceiving himself
or you.
Not a word about this book, unless you
are sure you ought to introduce it at this juncture. If he temporizes and still
thinks he can ever drink again, even beer, you may as well discharge him after
the next bender which, if an alcoholic, he is certain to have. Tell him that emphatically, and mean it! Either you are dealing with a man
who can and will get well, or you are not. If not, don't waste time with him.
This may seem severe, but it is usually the best course.
After satisfying yourself that your man
wants to recover and that he will go to any extreme to do so, you may suggest a
definite course of action. For most alcoholics who are drinking, or who are
just getting over a spree, a certain amount of physical treatment is desirable,
even imperative. Some physicians favor cutting off the liquor sharply, and prefer to use little or no sedative. This may
be wise in some instances, but for the most of us it is a barbaric torture. For
severe cases, some doctors prefer a slower tapering-down process, followed by a
health farm or sanitarium. Other doctors prefer a few days of de-toxication,
removal of poisons from the system by cathartics, belladonna, and the like,
followed by a week of mild exercise and rest. Having tried them all, I
personally favor the latter, though the matter of physical treatment should, of
course, be referred to your own doctor. Whatever the method, its object should
be to thoroughly clear mind and body of the effects of alcohol. In competent
hands, this seldom takes long, nor should it be very expensive. Your man is
entitled to be placed in such physical condition that he can think straight and
no longer physically craves liquor. These handicaps must be removed if you are
going to give him the chance you want him to have. Propose such a procedure to
him. Offer to advance the cost of treatment, if necessary, but make it plain
that any expense will later be deducted from his pay. Make him fully
responsible; it is much better for him.
When your man accepts your offer, point
out that physical treatment is but a small part of the picture. Though you are
providing him with the best possible medical attention, he should understand
that he must undergo a change of heart. To get over drinking will require a
transformation of thought and attitude. He must place recovery above
everything, even home and business, for without recovery he will lose both.
Show that you have every confidence in
his ability to recover. While on the subject of confidence, tell him that so
far as you are concerned, this will be a strictly personal matter. His
alcoholic derelictions, the treatment about to be undertaken, these will never
be discussed without his consent. Cordially wish him success and say you want
to have a long chat with him on his return.
To return to the subject matter of this
book: It contains, as you have seen, full directions by which your employee may
solve his problem. To you, some of the ideas which it contains are novel.
Perhaps some of them don't make sense to you. Possibly you are not quite in
sympathy with the approach we suggest. By no means do we offer it as the last
word on this subject, but so far as we are concerned, it has been the best word
so far. Our approach often does work. After all, you are looking for results
rather than methods. Whether your employee likes it or not, he will learn the
grim truth about alcoholism. That won't hurt him a bit, though he does not go
for the remedy at first.
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I suggest you draw our book to the
attention of the doctor who is to attend your patient during treatment. Ask
that the book be read the moment the patient is able — while he is acutely
depressed, if possible.
The doctor should approve a spiritual
approach. And besides, he ought to tell the patient the truth about his
condition, whatever that happens to be. The doctor should encourage him to
acquire a spiritual experience. At this stage it will be just as well if the
doctor does not mention you in connection with the book. Above all, neither
you, the doctor, nor anyone should place himself in the position of telling the
man he must abide by the contents of this volume. The man must decide for
himself. You cannot command him, you can only
encourage. And you will surely agree that it may be better to withold any criticism you may have of our method until you
see whether it works.
You are betting, of course, that your
changed attitude and the contents of this book will turn the trick. In some cases it will, and in others it will not. But we think that
if you persist, the percentage of successes will gratify you. When our work
spreads and our numbers increase, we hope your employees may be put in personal
contact with some of us, which, needless to say, will be more effective.
Meanwhile, we are sure a great deal can be accomplished if you will follow the
suggestions of this chapter.
On your employee's return, call him in
and ask what happened. Ask him if he thinks he has the answer. Get him to tell
you how he thinks it will work, and what he has to do about it. Make him feel
free to discuss his problems with you, if he cares to. Show him you understand,
and that you will not be upset by anything he wishes to say.
In this connection, it is important that
you remain undisturbed if the man proceeds to tell you things which shock you.
He may, for example, reveal that he has padded his expense account, or that he
has planned to take your best customers away from you. In fact, he may say
almost anything if he has accepted our solution which, as you know, demands
rigorous honesty. Charge this off as you would a bad account and start afresh
with him. If he owes you money, make terms which are reasonable. From this
point on, never rake up the past unless he wants to discuss it.
If he speaks of his home situation, be
patient and make helpful suggestions. Let him see that he can talk frankly with
you so long as he does not bear tales or criticize others. With the kind of employee you want to keep, such an attitude will command
undying loyalty.
The greatest enemies of the alcoholic are
resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration, and fear. Wherever men are gathered
together in business, there will be rivalries, and, arising out of these, a
certain amount of office politics. Sometimes the alcoholic has an idea that
people are trying to pull him down. Often this is not so at all. But sometimes
his drinking will be used as a basis of criticism.
One instance comes to mind in which a
malicious individual was always making friendly little jokes of an alcoholic's
drinking exploits. In another case, an alcoholic was sent to a hospital for
treatment. Only a few knew of it at first, but within a short time, it was
bill-boarded throughout the entire company. Naturally, this sort of thing
decreases a man's chance of recovery. The employer should make it his business
to protect the victim from this kind of talk if he can. The employer cannot
play favorites, but he can always try to defend a man from needless provocation
and unfair criticism.
As a class, alcoholics are energetic
people. They work hard and they play hard.
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Your man will be on his mettle to make
good. Being somewhat weakened, and faced with physical
and mental readjustment to a life which knows no alcohol, he may overdo. Don't
let him work sixteen hours a day just because he wants to. Encourage him to
play once in a while. Make it possible for him to do so. He may wish to do a lot
for other alcoholics and something of the sort may come up during business
hours. Don't begrudge him a reasonable amount of time. This work is necessary
to maintain his sobriety.
After your man has gone along without
drinking a few months, try to make use of his services with other employees who
are giving you the alcoholic run-around — provided, of course, they are willing
to have a third party in the picture. Don't hesitate to let an alcoholic who
has recovered, but holds a relatively unimportant job, talk to a man with a
better position. Being on radically different basis of life, he will never take
advantage of the situation.
You must trust your man. Long experience
with alcoholic excuses naturally makes you suspicious. When his wife next calls
saying he is sick, don't jump to the conclusion he is drunk. If he is, and is
still trying to recover upon our basis, he will presently tell you about it,
even if it means the loss of his job. For he knows he must be honest if he
would live at all. Let him see you are not bothering your head about him at
all, that you are not suspicious, nor are you trying to run his life so he will
be shielded from temptation to drink. If he is conscientiously following the
Program of Recovery he can go anywhere your business may call him. Do not
promote him, however, until you are sure.
In case he does stumble, even once, you
will have to decide whether to let him go. If you are sure he doesn't mean
business, there is no doubt you should discharge him. If, on the contrary, you
are sure he is doing his utmost, you may wish to give him another chance. But
you should feel under no obligation to do so, for your obligation has been well
discharged already. In any event, don't let him fool you, and don't let
sentiment get the better of you if you are sure he ought to go.
There is another thing you might do. If
your organization is a large one, your junior executives might be provided with
this book. You might let them know you have no quarrel with the alcoholics of
your organization. These juniors are often in a difficult position. Men under
them are frequently their friends. So, for one reason or another, they cover
these men, hoping matters will take a turn for the better. They often
jeopardize their own positions by trying to help serious drinkers who should
have been fired long ago, or else given an opportunity to get well.
After reading this book, a junior
executive can go to such a man and say, "look here, Ed. Do you want to
stop drinking or not? You put me on the spot every time you get drunk. It isn't
fair to me or the firm. I have been learning something about alcoholism. If you
are an alcoholic, you are a mighty sick man. You act like one. The firm wants
to help you get over it, if you are interested. There is a way out, and I hope
you have sense enough to try it. If you do, your past will be forgotten and the
fact that you went away for treatment will not be mentioned. But if you cannot,
or will not stop drinking, I think you ought to resign. "
Your junior executive may not agree with
the contents of our book. He need not, and often should not, show it to his
alcoholic prospect. But at least he will understand the problem and will no
longer be misled by ordinary promises. He will be able to take a position with
such a man which is eminently fair and square. He will have no further reason
for covering up an alcoholic employee.
It boils right down to this: No man
should be fired just because he is alcoholic. If he wants to stop, he should be
afforded a real chance. If he cannot, or does not want to stop, he should
usually be discharged. The exceptions
are few.
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We think this method of approach will
accomplish several things for you. It will promptly bring drinking situations
to light. It will enable you to restore good men to useful activity. At the
same time you will feel no reluctance to rid yourself
of those who cannot, or will not, stop.
Alcoholism may be causing your organization considerable damage in its
waste of money, men and reputation. We hope our suggestions will help you plug
up this sometimes serious leak. We do not expect you
to become a missionary, attempting to save all who happen to be alcoholic.
Being a business man is enough these days. But we can
sensibly urge that you stop this waste and give your worth-while man a chance.
The other day an approach was made to the
vice-president of a large industrial concern. He remarked: "I'm mighty
glad you fellows got over your drinking. But the policy of this company is not
to interfere with the habits of our employees. If a man drinks so much that his
job suffers, we fire him. I don't see how you can be of any help to us, for as
you see, we don't have any alcoholic problem. " This same company spends
millions for research every year. Their cost of production is figured to a fine
decimal point. They have recreational facilities. There is company insurance.
There is a real interest, both humanitarian and business, in the well-being of
employees. But alcoholism — well, they just don't have that.
Perhaps this is a typical attitude. We,
who have collectively seen a great deal of business life, at least from the
alcoholic angle, had to smile at this gentleman's opinion. He might be shocked
if he knew how much alcoholism cost his organization a year. That company may
harbor many actual or potential alcoholics. We believe that managers of large
enterprises often have little idea how prevalent this problem is. Perhaps this
is a guess, but we have a hunch it's a good one. If you still feel your organization
has no alcoholic problem, you might well take another look down the line You
may make some interesting discoveries.
Of course, this chapter refers to
alcoholics, sick people, deranged men. What our friend, the vice-president, had
in mind, was the habitual or whoopee drinker. As to them, his policy is
probably sound, but as you see, he does not distinguish between such people and
the alcoholic.
Being a business man,
you might like to have a summary of this chapter. Here it Is:
One: Acquaint yourself with the nature of
alcoholism.
Two: Be prepared to discount and forget
your man's past.
Three: Confidentially offer him medical
treatment and cooperation,
provided you think he wants to stop.
Four: Have the alcohol thoroughly removed
from his system and give
him a suitable chance to recover
physically.
Five: Have the doctor in attendance
present him with this book, but
don't cram it down his throat.
Six: Have a frank talk with him when he
gets back from his treat-
ment, assuring him of your full support, encouraging him to
say anything he
wishes about himself, and making it clear the
past will not be held against him.
Seven: Ask him to place recovery from
alcoholism ahead of all else.
Eight: Don't let him overwork.
Nine: Protect him, when justified, from
malicious gossip.
Ten: If, after you have shot the works,
he will not stop, then let
him go.
It is not to be expected that you give
your alcoholic employee a disproportionate amount of time and attention. He is
not to be made a favorite. The right kind of man, the kind who recovers, will
not want this sort of thing. He will not impose upon you. Far from it. He will
work like the devil, and thank you to his dying day.
Today, I own a little company. There are
two alcoholic employees, who produce as
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much as five normal salesmen. But why
not? They have a better way of life, and they have been saved from a living
death. I have enjoyed every moment spent in getting them straightened out. You,
Mr. Employer, may have the same experience!*
* See appendix — The Alcoholic
Foundation. We may be able to carry on a limited correspondence.
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Chapter Eleven
A VISION FOR YOU
For most normal folks, drinking means
conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from
care, boredom, and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends, and a feeling
that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The
old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the
great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy as we once
did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable
us to do it. There was always one more attempt — and one more failure.
The less people tolerated us, the more we
withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol,
shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness
settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid
places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we
did — then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four
Horsemen — Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who see
this page will understand!
Now and then a serious drinker, being dry
at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better. Work better.
Having a better time. " As ex-alcoholics, we smile at such a sally. We
know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He
fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and
get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn't
happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he
will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will
know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will
wish for the end.
We have shown you how we got out from
under. You say: "Yes, I'm willing. But am I to be consigned to a life
where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see? I
know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient
substitute?"
Yes, there is a substitute, and it is
vastly more than that. It is a Fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you
will find release from care, boredom, and worry. Your imagination will be
fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your
existence lie ahead. Thus we find The Fellowship, and
so will you.
"How is that to come about?"
you say. "Where am I to find these people?"
You are going to meet these new friends
in your own community. Near you alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in
a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. These are to
be your companions. High and low, rich and poor, these are future Fellows of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be
bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster
together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then
you will know what it means to give of yourself, that others may survive and
rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of "Love thy neighbor as
thyself. "
It may seem incredible that these men are
to become happy, respected, and
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useful once more. How can they rise out
of such misery, bad repute and hopelessness? The practical answer is that since
these things have happened among us, they can happen again. Should you wish
them above all else, and should you be willing to make use of our experience,
we are sure they will come. The age of miracles is still with us. Our own
recovery proves that!
Our hope is that when this chip of a book
is launched on the world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon
it, following its directions. Many, we are sure, will rise to their feet and
march on. They will approach still other sick ones and so the Fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous may spring up in each city and hamlet, havens for those
who must find a way out.
In the chapter "Working With
Others" you gathered an idea of how to approach and aid others to health.
Suppose now that through you several families have adopted your way of life.
You will want to know more of how to proceed from that point. Perhaps the best
way of treating you to a glimpse of your future will be to describe the growth
of the Fellowship among us. Here is a brief account:
Nearly four years ago, one of our number
made a journey to a certain western city. From the business standpoint, his
trip came off badly. Had he been successful in his enterprise, he would have
been set on his feet financially, which, at the time, seemed vitally important.
But his venture wound up in a law suit and bogged down
completely. The proceding was shot through with much
hard feeling and controversy.
Bitterly discouraged, he found himself in
a strange place, discredited and almost broke. Still physically weak, and sober
but a few months, he saw that his predicament was dangerous. He wanted so much
to talk with someone, but whom?
One dismal afternoon he paced a hotel
lobby wondering how his bill was to be paid. At one end of the room stood a
glass covered directory of local churches. Down the lobby a door opened into an
attractive bar. He could see the gay crowd inside. In there he would find
companionship and release. Unless he took some drinks, he might not have the
courage to scrape an acquaintance, and would have a
lonely week-end.
Of course, he couldn't drink, but why not
sit hopefully at a table, a bottle of ginger ale before him? Then after all,
had he not been sober six months now? Perhaps he could
handle, say, three drinks — no more! Fear gripped him. He was on thin ice. Again it was the old, insidious insanity — that first drink.
With a shiver, he turned away and walked down the lobby to the church
directory. Music and gay chatter still floated to him from the bar.
But what about his responsibilities — his
family and the men who would die because they would not know how to get well,
ah — yes, those other alcoholics? There must be many such in this town. He
would phone a clergyman. His sanity returned, and he thanked God. Selecting a
church at random from the directory, he stepped into a booth and lifted the
receiver.
Little could he foresee what that simple
decision was to mean. How could any one guess that life and happiness for many
was to depend on whether one depressed man entered a phone booth or a bar? His
call to the clergyman led him presently to a
certain resident of the town, who, though formerly able and respected,
was then nearing the nadir of alcoholic despair. It was the usual situation:
home in jeopardy, wife ill, children distracted, bills in arrears, and
reputation damaged. He had a desperate desire to stop, but
saw no way out; for he had earnestly tried many avenues of escape. Painfully
aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it means to
be alcoholic.
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When our friend told his experience, the
man agreed that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking
for long. A spiritual experience, he conceded, was absolutely necessary, but
the price seemed high upon the basis suggested. He told how he lived in
constant worry about creditors and others who might find out about his
alcoholism. He had, of course, the familiar alcoholic obsession that few knew
of his drinking. Why, he argued, should he lose the remainder of his business,
so bringing still more suffering to his family, by foolishly admitting his
plight to his creditors and those from whom he made his livelihood? He would do
anything, he said, but that.
Being intrigued, however, he invited our
friend to his home. Some time later, and just as he thought he was getting
control of his liquor situation, he went on a roaring bender. For him, this was
the spree that ended all sprees. He saw that he would have to face his problems
squarely, that God might give him mastery.
One morning he took the bull by the horns
and set out to tell those he feared what his trouble had been. He found himself
surprisingly well received, and learned that many knew
of his drinking. Stepping into his car, he made the rounds of people he had
hurt. He trembled as he went about, for this might mean ruin, particularly to a
person in his line of business.
At midnight he came home exhausted, but
very happy. He has not had a drink since. As we shall see, he now means a great
deal to his community, and the major liabilities of thirty years of hard
drinking have been repaired in less than four.
But life was not easy for the two
friends. Plenty of difficulties presented themselves. Both saw that they must
keep spiritually active. One day they called up the head nurse of a local
hospital. They explained their need and inquired if she had a first class alcoholic prospect.
She replied, "Yes, we've got a
corker. He's just beaten up a couple of nurses. Goes off his head completely
when drinking. But he's a grand chap when sober though he's been in here six
times in the last four months. Understand he was once a well-known lawyer in
town, but just now we've got him strapped down tight. "
Here was a prospect all right, but, by
the description, none too promising. The use of spiritual principles in such
cases was not so well understood as it is now. But one of the friends said,
"Put him in a private room. We'll be down. "
Two days later, a future Fellow of
Alcoholics Anonymous stared glassily at the strangers beside his bed. "Who
are you fellows, and why this private room? I was always in a ward before.
"
Said one of the visitors, "We're
giving you a treatment for alcoholism. "
Hopelessness was written large on the
man's face as he replied: "Oh, but that's no use. Nothing would fix me.
I'm a goner. The last three times, I got drunk on the way home from here. I'm
afraid to go out the door. I can't understand it. "
For an hour, the two friends told him
about their drinking experiences. Over and over, he would say: "That's me.
That's me. I drink like that. "
The man in the bed was told of the acute
poisoning from which he suffered, how it deteriorates the body of an alcoholic
and warps his mind. There was much talk about the mental state preceding the
first drink.
"Yes, that's me, " said the
sick man, "the very image. You fellows know your stuff all right, but I
don't see what good it'll do. You fellows are somebody. I
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was once, but I'm a nobody now. From what
you tell me, I know more than ever I can't stop. " At this both the
visitors burst into a laugh. Said the future Fellow Anonymous: "Damn
little to laugh about that I can see. "
The two friends spoke of their spiritual
experience and told him about the course of action they carried out.
He interrupted: "I used to be strong
for the church, but that won't fix it. I've prayed to God on hangover mornings
and sworn that I'd never touch another drop, but by nine oclock
I'd be boiled as an owl. "
Next day found the prospect more
receptive. He had been thinking it over. "Maybe you're right, " he
said. "God ought to be able to do anything. " Then he added, "He
sure didn't do much for me when I was trying to fight this booze racket alone.
"
On the third day the lawyer gave his life
to the care and direction of his Creator, and said he was perfectly willing to
do anything necessary. His wife came, scarcely daring to be hopeful, but she
thought she saw something different about her husband already. He had begun to
have a spiritual experience.
That afternoon he put on his clothes and
walked from the hospital a free man. He entered a political campaign, making
speeches, frequenting men's gathering places of all sorts, often staying up all
night. He lost the race by only a narrow margin. But he had found God — and in
finding God had found himself.
That was in June,
1935. He never drank again. He too, has become a respected and useful member of
his community. He has helped other men recover, and is
a power in the church from which he was long absent.
So, you see, there were three alcoholics
in that town, who now felt they had to give to others what they had found, or be sunk. After several failures to find others, a
fourth turned up. He came through an acquaintance who had heard the good news.
He proved to be a devil-may-care young fellow whose parents could not make out
whether he wanted to stop drinking or not. They were deeply religious people,
much shocked by their son's refusal to have anything to do with the church. He
suffered horribly from his sprees, but it seemed as if nothing could be done
for him. He consented, however, to go to the hospital, where he occupied the
very room recently vacated by the lawyer.
He had three visitors. After a bit, he
said: "The way you fellows put this spiritual stuff makes sense. I'm ready
to do business. I guess the old folks were right after all. " So one more was added to the Fellowship.
All this time our friend of the hotel
lobby incident remained in that town. He was there three months. He now
returned home, leaving behind his first acquaintance, the lawyer, and the
devil-may-care chap. These men had found something brand new in life. Though
they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that
motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in
giving themselves for others. They shared their homes, their slender resources,
and gladly devoted their spare hours to fellow-sufferers.
They were willing, by day or night, to place a new man in the hospital and
visit him afterward. They grew in numbers. They experienced a few distressing
failures, but in those cases, they made an effort to
bring the man's family into a new way of living, thus relieving much worry and
suffering.
A year and sic months later these three
had succeeded with seven more. Seeing much of each other, scarce an evening
passed that someone's home did not shelter a little gathering of men and women,
happy in their release, and constantly thinking
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how they might present their discovery to
some newcomer. In addition to these casual get-togethers, it became customary
to set apart one night a week for a meeting to be attended by anyone or
everyone interested in a spiritual way of life. Aside from fellowship and
sociability, the prime object was to provide a time and place where new people
might bring their problems.
Outsiders became interested. One man and
his wife placed their large home at the disposal of this strangely assorted
crowd. This couple has since become so fascinated that they have dedicated
their home to the work. Many a distracted wife has visited this house to find
loving and understanding companionship among women who knew their problem, to
hear from the lips of men like their husbands what had happened to them, to be
advised how her own wayward mate might be hospitalized and approached when next
he stumbled.
Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital
experience, has stepped over the threshold of that home into freedom. Many an
alcoholic who entered there came away with an answer. He succumbed to that gay
crowd inside, who laughed at their misfortune and understood him. Impressed by
those who visited him at the hospital, he capitulated entirely, when, later, in
an upper room of this house, he heard the story of some man whose experience
closely tallied with his own. The expression on the faces of the women, that indefinable
something in the eyes of the men, the stimulating and electric atmosphere of
the place, conspired to let him know that here was haven at last.
The very practical approach to his
problems, the absence of intolerance of any kind, the informality, the genuine
democracy, the uncanny understanding which these people had were irresistable. He and his wife would leave elated by the
thought of what they could now do for some stricken acquaintance and his
family. They knew they had a host of new friends; it seemed they had known
these strangers always. They had seen miracles, and one was to come to them.
They had visioned The Great Reality — their loving and All
Powerful Creator.
Now, this house will hardly accommodate
its weekly visitors, for they number sixty or eighty as a rule. Alcoholics are
being attracted from far and near. From surrounding towns, families drive long
distances to be present. A community thirty miles away has fifteen Fellows of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Being a large place, we think that some day its
Fellowship will number many hundreds.
But life among Alcoholics Anonymous is
more than attending meetings and visiting hospitals. Cleaning up old scrapes,
helping to settle family differences, explaining the disinherited son to his
irate parents, lending money and securing jobs for each other, when justified —
these are everyday occurrences. No one is too discredited. nor has sunk too low
to be welcomed cordially — if he means business. Social distinctions, petty
rivalries and jealousies — these are laughed out of countenance. Being wrecked
in the same vessel, being restored and united under one God, with hearts and
minds attuned to the welfare of others, the things which matter so much to some
people no longer signify much to them. How could they?
Under only slightly different conditions,
the same thing is taking place in several eastern cities. In one of these there
is a well-known hospital for the treatment of alcoholic and drug addiction.
Four years ago one of our number was a patient there.
Many of us have felt, for the first time, the Presence and Power of God within
its walls. We are greatly indebted to the doctor in attendance there, for he,
although it might prejudice his own work, has told us
his belief in our work.
Every few days this doctor suggests our
approach to one of his patients.
Understanding our work, he can do this with an eye to selecting those who are
willing and able to recover on a spiritual basis. Many of us, former patients,
go there to help.
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Then, in this eastern city there are
informal meetings such as we have described to you, where you may see thirty or
forty, there are the same fast friendships, there is the same helpfulness to
one another as you find among our western friends. There is a good bit of
travel between East and West and we foresee a great increase in this helpful
interchange.
Some day we hope that every alcoholic who
journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. To
some extent this is already true. Some of us are salesmen and go about. Little
clusters of twos and threes and fives of us have sprung up in other
communities, through contact with our two larger centers. Those of us who
travel drop in as often as we can. This practice enables us to lend a hand, at
the same time avoiding certain alluring distractions of the road, about which
any traveling man can inform you.
Thus we grow. And so can you, though you be but one man with this book in
your hand. We believe and hope it contains all you will need to begin.
We know what you are thinking. You are
saying to yourself: "I'm jittery and alone. I couldn't do that. " But
you can. You forget that you have just now tapped a source of power so much
greater than yourself. To duplicate, with such backing, what we have
accomplished is only a matter of willingness, patience and labor.
We know a former alcoholic who was living
alone in a large community. He had lived there but a few weeks when he found
that the place probably contained more alcoholics per square mile than any city
in the country. This was only a few days ago at this writing. The authorities
were much concerned. He got in touch with a prominent psychiatrist who has
undertaken certain responsibilities for the mental health of the community. The
doctor proved to be able and exceedingly anxious to adopt any workable method
of handling the situation. Agreeing with many competent and informed
physicians, he said he could do little or nothing for the average alcoholic.
So, he inquired, what did our friend have on-the ball?
Our friend proceeded to tell him. And
with such good effect that the doctor agreed to a test among his patients and
certain other alcoholics from a clinic which he attends. Arrangements were also
made with the chief psychiatrist of a large public hospital to select still
others from the stream of misery which flows through that institution.
So our fellow worker will soon have friends galore. Some of them may sink
and perhaps never get up, but if our experience is a criterion, more than half
of those approached will become Fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. When a few men
in this city have found themselves, and have
discovered the joy of helping others to face life again, there will be no
stopping until everyone in that town has has his
opportunity to recover — if he can and will.
Still you may say: "But I will not have the benefit of contact with you
who write this book. " We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you
must remember that your real reliance is always upon Him. He will show you how
to create the Fellowship you crave. *
Our book is meant to be suggestive only.
We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and
to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man
who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But
obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your
relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and
countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand
God. Admit your faults to him and
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and your fellows. Clear away the wreckage
of your past. Give freely of what you find, and join
us. We shall be with you, in the Fellowship of The Spirit, and you will surely
meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you — until
then.
* See appendix — The Alcoholic
Foundation. It may be we shall be able to carry on a limited correspondence.
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THE ALCOHOLIC FOUNDATION
In our text we have shown the alcoholic
how he can recover but we realize that many will want to write us directly.
To receive these inquiries, to administer
royalties from this book and such other funds as may come to hand, a Trust has
been created known as The Alcoholic Foundation. Three Trustees are members of
Alcoholics Anonymous, the other four are well-known business and professional
men who have volunteered their services. The Trust states these four (who are
not of Alcoholics Anonymous) or their successors, shall always constitute a
majority of the Board of Trustees.
We must frankly state however, that under
present conditions, we may be unable to reply to all inquiries, as our members,
in their spare time, will attend to most of the correspondence. Nevertheless we shall strenuously attempt to communicate
with those men and women who are able to report that they are staying sober and
working with other alcoholics. Once we have such an active nucleus, we can then
refer to them those inquiries which originate in their respective localities.
Starting with small but active centers created in this fashion, we are
confident that fellowships will spring up and grow very much as they have among
us. Meanwhile, we hope the Foundation will become more useful to all.
The Alcoholic Foundation is our only
agency of its kind. We have agreed that all business engagements touching on
our alcoholic work shall have the approval of its trustees. People who state
they represent The Alcoholic Foundation should be asked for credentials and if
unsatisfactory, these ought to be checked with the
Foundation at once. We welcome inquiry by scientific, medical and religious
societies.
This volume is published by the Works
Publishing Company, organized and financed mostly by small donations of our
members. This company donates the customary royalties from each copy of
Alcoholics Anonymous to The Alcoholic Foundation.
To order this book, send your check or
money order for $3. 50 to:
The Works Publishing Company,
17 William Street,
Newark, N. J.