Page 39 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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18 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
An illness of this sort—and we have come to believe
it an illness—involves those about us in a way no other
human sickness can. If a person has cancer all are
sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so
with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes anni­
hilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs
all whose lives touch the sufferer’s. It brings misun­
derstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity,
disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of
blameless children, sad wives and parents—anyone
can increase the list.
We hope this volume will inform and comfort those
who are, or who may be affected. There are many.
Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with
us have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an
alcoholic to discuss his situation without reserve.
Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends
usually find us even more unapproachable than do the
psychiatrist and the doctor.
But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solu­
tion, who is properly armed with facts about himself,
can generally win the entire confidence of another al­
coholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding
is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.
That the man who is making the approach has had
the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is
talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the
new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that
he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing what­
ever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there
are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to
please, no lectures to be endured—these are the condi­