| 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
a 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.
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