“As animals on a treadmill, we have patiently and wearily climbed, falling back in exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground.” (Page 107, Big Book)
“After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.” (The Doctor’s Opinion)
“Or am I expecting to steal a little vicarious pleasure from the atmosphere of such places?”
When I have an Al-Anon slip, I get tangled in an alcoholic’s drinking spree (or emotional spree). That entanglement is me getting on someone else’s rollercoaster. They’re going up and down, round and round. So I go up and down, round and round. I’m getting all of the ups and downs, all of the runaround, just without the substance, one stage removed. The alcoholic is drinking on my behalf, or he’s having the emotional spree on my behalf. He might not be drinking or having the emotional spree if I weren’t there holding his damp little hand. He might have to face himself, sort himself out, and get well.
Sometimes people in recovery, rather than having a drink, have a drink through someone else: the vicarious pleasure stolen. It’s not mine. An attempt to get all the fun of the fair, just without paying the price. Hence stolen.
Sometimes, the person through whom I’m drinking is not even an addict. I just construe them to be. That’s the horror of it: there doesn’t even need to be crisis for me to create a drama. I can work with whatever material is there. The whole thing can be in my head.