This physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma but had failed. But when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth’s description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had never before been able to muster. He sobered, never to drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950. This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as no non-alcoholic could. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery.
- The willingness to pursue the spiritual remedy is the willingness to translate notional faith into practical actions
- The practical actions in question (referred to earlier in this foreword) include moral inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to those harmed, and helpfulness to others
- The sticking point for Dr Bob (the Akron physician), according to Chapter 11, was amends
- Only when he completed his amends did Dr Bob stay sober
- I stopped relapsing, too, when I fully gave myself to the programme
- In 1935, there was no fellowship
- I regularly hear people saying that meetings 'save them' and that think they would have drunk if they hadn't gone to a meeting on a particular day
- However, meetings do not further moral inventory, confession of personality defects, or restitution to those harmed, although they do offer an opportunity to help others
- Meetings also provide a venue for mutual inspiration and encouragement
- But they are not a substitute for the programme
- I suspect (although I cannot prove it) that a lot of people in recovery survive on the spiritual uplift of going to meetings
- They feel better, for a few hours, so they're fine!
- There are a couple of problems, though:
- The effect of wonderful meetings is temporary and wears off very quickly
- Eventually, the effect is attenuated, and meetings stop providing sufficient relief
- I spent months in AA being relieved by meetings until meetings stopped working
- Then I had to actually grab the programme and use it as my method for living
- Meeting reliance is like going to store to buy water in small quantities
- The programme is like building a well in your back yard
- The well needs to be maintained and worked but represents a much more durable solution