Page 55 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

34 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

people everywhere. But try and get them to see it!*
As we look back, we feel we had gone on drinking
many years beyond the point where we could quit on
our will power. If anyone questions whether he has
entered this dangerous area, let him try leaving liquor
alone for one year. If he is a real alcoholic and very
far advanced, there is scant chance of success. In the
early days of our drinking we occasionally remained
sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers
again later. Though you may be able to stop for a con-
siderable period, you may yet be a potential alcoholic.
We think few, to whom this book will appeal, can stay
dry anything like a year. Some will be drunk the day
after making their resolutions; most of them within a
few weeks.
For those who are unable to drink moderately the
question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming,
of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether
such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis de-
pends upon the extent to which he has already lost
the power to choose whether he will drink or not.
Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There
was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found
it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism
as we know it—this utter inability to leave it alone,
no matter how great the necessity or the wish.
How then shall we help our readers determine, to
their own satisfaction, whether they are one of us?
The experiment of quitting for a period of time will
be helpful, but we think we can render an even greater
service to alcoholic sufferers and perhaps to the medi-

* True when this book was first published. But a 2003 U.S./Canada membership sur-
vey showed about one-fifth of A.A.’s were thirty and under.