“But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!” (Dr Bob’s Nightmare, Big Book)
The basis for hope:
- Wanting to stop drinking forever
- Having no reservations
- Recognising one cannot do this alone
- Recognising that one must have help
Whatever intelligence, resourcefulness, and determination
was used in getting alcohol, well, half of that, if deployed in favour of
getting and staying sober through the Twelve Steps, will be effective.
The resources are there within me, waiting to be tapped.
When I was new, I was not clueless, mindless, pathetic, vulnerable, shy, in need of Special Sharing Slots and people tiptoeing around me, in case I heard something I did not like or understand and ran for the alcoholic hills. I was someone who, through alcoholic drinking, had developed the ability to spin many plates, to find alcohol (and enough of it) under any circumstances, and to withstand any amount of pain and setback to persist with the obsession and craving for years. I did put on the waif-act, but it wasn’t true. There was more to me than me the eye, and that more had to be accessed in favour of sobriety.