Chapter 3: More About Alcoholism
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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
drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence
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, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our
drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers 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 a 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 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 nonalcoholic. 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,
going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to
asylums---we could increase the list ad infinitum.
We do not like to pronounce any individual as 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
may be worth a bad case of jitters if you get a full knowledge of your
condition.
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 for a long period because of an overpowering
desire to do 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 altogether 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 we are planning to stop
drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion
that someday we will be immune to alcohol.
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 or less, had been drinking only 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 female 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 alcoholics, 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 nonspiritual basis depends 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 knew 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 a 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 a 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 one 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 that he could take
whiskey if only he mixed it with milk!
Whatever the precise 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 us. We 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
for 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 and 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 nonalcoholic 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 damaged 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 re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers
as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience. Let us take another
illustration.
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 has so attractive a personality that he makes friends with
everyone. If ever there was a successful businessman, it is Fred. To all
appearance 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
what we knew 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, and I frankly did not believe it would be possible for me
to drink again. I rather appreciated your ideas about the subtle insanity
which precedes the first drink, but I was confident it could not happen to
me after what I had learned. I reasoned I was not so far advanced as most of
you fellows, that I had been usually successful in licking my other personal
problems, and 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 that 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,
and 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 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 the 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 prophesied 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 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.
Many 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.
True when this book was first published. But a 2011 U.S./Canada membership
survey showed about one-thirteenth of A.A.'s were thirty and under.