“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. … 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.” (Chapter 2, Big Book)
“In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like. But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.” (Chapter 3, Big Book)
“But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.” (Chapter 5, 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 ordered a cocktail and my meal.” (Chapter 2, Big Book)
Sometimes the idea is presented that alcoholics have bad feelings, and they drink because of the bad feelings. They think: “I’m having a bad feeling. A drink will solve that. Therefore, to solve that, I will have the drink.” And then they have the drink. Seems plausible, right?
This looks like the operation of reason. Yet, both overall and in most individual situations, the relief of bad feelings afforded by drinking is actually outweighed by the bad feelings generated by drinking, if not during the bout, certainly in the immediate aftermath, and that’s before one considers the aggregate effect of alcoholic drinking in terms of emotional state.
As the readings above show, moreover, this ‘reasoning’ was typically grossly inadequate (and in my experience fleeting: the thought of a drink would occur, apparently in response to a ‘bad feeling’, and the plan would immediately present itself. This is not consideration or contemplation in the ordinary sense of decision-formulation.)
Furthermore, I did not think of a drink every time I had a bad feeling. And I thought of a drink when I did not have a bad feeling.
The idea that I drank because of bad feelings is now starting to look very shaky indeed.
It’s very clear that the reason I gave myself for drinking—bad feelings—was not the reason in the sense of the primary ground in a logical system.
It’s very clear that the system was not logical. The system was not sound. The system was not sane. In a system that is not logical, sound, or sane, it makes absolutely no sense to talk of reasoning, because what appears to be reasoning is really rationalisation: the presentation of superficially plausible but ultimately specious reasons for a course of action. If the course of action is not driven by reason, by ordinary mental processes of the higher parts of the mind, it must be driven by something else.
What is driving it, then? Short answer: alcoholism. There’s part of my brain that seems to throw up the idea of a drink periodically. The occurrence of such a thought might be brought forward by a general dissatisfaction with life sober (cf. the boy whistling in the dark, Bill with his “waves of self-pity and resentment” which “sometimes [but not all the time] nearly drove me back to drink [but did not]”, and Fred, whose attempts to live life sober were apparently unsatisfactory, even though he at the time was not actually aware of that: “My old manner of life was by no means a bad one, but I would not exchange its best moments for the worst I have now. I would not go back to it even if I could”), but there are as many examples of characters in the Big Book who are not unhappy or who are not aware of how relatively unhappy they are (CAB: “His physical and mental condition were unusually good.” MOT: “retired at the age of fifty-five, after a successful and happy business career … Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle.”)
What we’re therefore left with is simply the phenomenon: come rain or shine, the thought of a drink will occur.
“The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.” (Chapter 3, Big Book)
We therefore need a relationship with God to stay sober.
And this is where resentment (accompanied by all its friends) comes in:
When I’m resentful, I’m adopting the position: “I’m in charge. I know how things should be. And this is not how things should be.” I’m playing God, and, when playing God, I’m cutting myself off from God.
This is why resentment (and all its friends: cynicism, fear, anxiety, depression, self-loathing, despondency, despair) lead to a drink. They may or may not prompt the thought of a drink to occur. Maybe the thought would have occurred anyway. Maybe the opportunity would have presented itself anyway. But they sure as hell block off the defence against following though and actually drinking.
To drink, two things must happen:
Firstly, I must think of a drink.
Secondly, I must take the drink.
Resentment may or may not trigger or accelerate the onset of the first, but its absence is no defence against the thought of a drink.
Resentment will block me from the only Power that can stop thought converting into action.
That is why resentment is the number one offender.