Page 51 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Chapter 3

MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM

ost of us have been unwilling to admit we
Mwere real alcoholics. No person likes to think
he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows.
Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers
have been characterized by countless vain attempts
to prove we could drink like other people. The idea
that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his
drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal
drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.
Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our in-
nermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the
first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like
other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost
the ability to control our drinking. We know that no
real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at
times that we were regaining control, but such inter-
vals—usually brief—were inevitably followed by still
less control, which led in time to pitiful and incompre-
hensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man
that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progres-
sive illness. Over any considerable period we get
worse, never better.
We are like men who have lost their legs; they
never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be
any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of
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