“These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.” (The Doctor’s Opinion)
“It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives.” (The Doctor’s Opinion)
“If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic’s drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can’t feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk. Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have. Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time. But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot.” (Page 23, Big Book)
“We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men.” (Page 22, Big Book)
“Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.” (The Doctor’s Opinion)
“An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years and retired at the age of fifty-five, after a successful and happy business career. Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has—that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle.” (Page 32, Big Book)
“I had no intention of drinking. I just thought I would get a sandwich. I also had the notion that I might find a customer for a car at this place, which was familiar for I had been going to it for years. I had eaten there many times during the months I was sober. I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk. ‘Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it couldn’t hurt me on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk.’” (Page 36, Big Book)
“Physically, I felt fine. Neither did I have any pressing problems or worries. My business came off well, I was pleased and knew my partners would be too. It was the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon. ‘I went to my hotel and leisurely dressed for dinner. As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to mind that it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner. That was all. Nothing more. I ordered a cocktail and my meal.’” (Page 41, Big Book)
Two fallacies in AA:
(1) There is a sort of alcoholic personality, a temperamental predisposition towards alcoholism, a general maladjustment to life to which alcohol was a solution.
(2) Drinking again after a period of sobriety is due to the development of some abnormal emotional condition, in response to which the alcoholic rationally chooses to drink again, because it is the only solution available.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is clear from the actual text that:
- There is no general personality type of alcoholics.
- Excessive quantities drunk are not attributable to unhappiness, stupidity, or generalised madness.
- Alcoholism is to do with a particular relationship to alcohol, not a generalised ‘addictive personality’.
- Alcoholics are not intrinsically maladjusted, incompetent, unhappy, or immature.
- Alcoholics are not alcoholics ‘because of’ anything in their lives, past or present.
- Alcoholics do not drink on any particular ‘because of’ anything in their lives, past or present.
- Relapse does not happen because of circumstance, unhappiness, or emotional state.
- The ‘motivations’ for driving presented in the alcoholic mind are rationalisations for an essentially non-rational impulse; they are not the reason why the drinking is taking place but the cover story, the alibi.
- Alcohol did not do anything different, good, or special for alcoholics.
- Alcohol was in fact bad for alcoholics, even in relation to the problems that the alcoholic mind told the alcoholic were being helped (e.g. anxiety, depression: this is the point of the man-with-the-hammer example—alcohol made such problems worse, immediately as well as in the long term).
- The only thing that alcohol ‘treated’ was the physical withdrawal syndrome plus the terrible tension that arises when the desire to drink develops but is resisted (the ‘restless, irritable, discontent’ feeling).
This leaves me:
I’m an alcoholic, but there’s no knowing why.
If I drink again, it is because I do not have a defence from God against the ineradicable, senseless desire to drink.