Definition of alcoholism:
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. (Big Book)
Uh oh. No spiritual malady mentioned. No mention of the spiritual malady anywhere in the Step One part of the Big Book. Maybe Bill got it wrong.
I bet he corrected himself in the Twelve and Twelve.
Let’s see:
The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that ensured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process. (Twelve and Twelve)
Uh oh. No third edge to the sword. No spiritual malady. Did he not listen to speaker tapes?
So, there’s no spiritual malady involved, right? Wrong. It’s very involved.
Here’s how:
It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of providence can remove it from us. (Twelve and Twelve)
Turns out we’re mad and need God to take charge (and remain in charge).
When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.
Aha! So, the spiritual malady is part of alcoholism.
Well, alcoholics have it. But so does pretty much everyone else.
The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. (Big Book)
We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. (Big Book)
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. (Big Book)
Our actor is self-centered—ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired businessman who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister 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 our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity? (Big Book)
But aren’t the bedevilments the elusive third part of alcoholism?
We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn’t apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our 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 these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was.
Sure, we’ve got ‘em. But the Big Book describes these as human problems.
Turns out I’m an alcoholic and a messed-up human being with a spiritual malady, and, unless the spiritual malady is dealt with (and dealt with first, once I’ve been detoxed), I have no hope of recovering from my alcoholism.