Page 18 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Men and women drink essentially because they like the
effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that,
while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time
differentiate the true from the false. To them, their
alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless,
irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience
the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by
taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking
with impunity. 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.

On the other hand—and strange as this may seem to those
who do not understand—once a psychic change has
occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who
had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them,
suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for
alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to
follow a few simple rules.

Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal:
“Doctor, I cannot go on like this! I have everything to live
for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!’’

Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself,
he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he
gives all that is in him, it often is not enough. One feels that
something more than human power is needed to produce
the essential psychic change. Though the aggregate of
recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable,
we physicians must admit we have made little impression
upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond
to the ordinary psychological approach.