Page 103 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 82

82 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
forget, so can she. It is better, however, that one does
not needlessly name a person upon whom she can vent
jealousy.
Perhaps there are some cases where the utmost
frankness is demanded. No outsider can appraise such
an intimate situation. It may be that both will decide
that the way of good sense and loving kindness is to
let by-gones be by-gones. Each might pray about it,
having the other one’s happiness uppermost in mind.
Keep it always in sight that we are dealing with that
most terrible human emotion—jealousy. Good general­
ship may decide that the problem be attacked on the
flank rather than risk a face-to-face combat.
If we have no such complication, there is plenty we
should do at home. Sometimes we hear an alcoholic
say that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober.
Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be no
home if he doesn’t. But he is yet a long way from
making good to the wife or parents whom for years
he has so shockingly treated. Passing all understand­
ing is the patience mothers and wives have had with
alcoholics. Had this not been so, many of us would
have no homes today, would perhaps be dead.
The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way
through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet
relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted.
Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in
turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when he says
that sobriety is enough. He is like the farmer who
came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home
ruined. To his wife, he remarked, “Don’t see anything
the matter here, Ma. Ain’t it grand the wind stopped
blowin’?’’