“Potential alcoholic that I was, I nearly failed my law course.” (Page 2, Big Book)
“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.” (Pages 33–34, Big Book)
“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.” (Page 39, Big Book)
“The tragic truth is that if the man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive. He has lost control. At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.” (Pages 23–24, Big Book)
As it turns out, the distinction between potential and real
/ true alcoholic is a little blurry. Also, it does not matter. Neither the
potential nor the real / true alcoholic can stay stopped: the potential
alcoholic has no advantage over the real / true alcoholic. The position is
exactly the same in practice, the destination is the same in practice, and the
treatment is the same in practice.
In other words, even a hint of being unable to stop places
me in exactly the same position as the person who has been trying and failing
for years. This is all very democratic.