Page 10 - This is A.A. an Introduction to the A.A. Recovery Program

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Alcoholism — an illness
Today we are willing to accept the idea that, as
far as we are concerned, alcoholism is an illness,
a progressive illness which can never be “cured,”
but which, like some other illnesses, can be
arrested. We agree that there is nothing shame-
ful about having an illness, provided we face the
problem honestly and try to do something about
it. We are perfectly willing to admit that we are
allergic to alcohol and that it is simply common
sense to stay away from the source of our allergy.
We understand now that once a person has
crossed the invisible borderline from heavy
drinking to compulsive alcoholic drinking, that
person will always remain an alcoholic. So far as
we know, there can never be any turning back to
“normal” social drinking. “Once an alcoholic,
always an alcoholic” is a simple fact we have to
live with.
We have also learned that there are few alter-
natives for alcoholics. If they continue to drink,
their problem will become progressively worse;
they seem assuredly on the path to skid row, to
hospitals, to jails or other institutions, or to early
graves. The only alternative is to stop drinking
completely, to abstain from even the smallest
quantity of alcohol in any form. If they are willing
to follow this course, and to take advantage of the
help available to them, a whole new life can open
up for alcoholics.
There were times in our drinking careers
when we were convinced that all we had to do to
control our drinking was to quit after the second
drink, the fifth, or some other number. Only
gradually did we come to appreciate that it was
not the fifth or the tenth or the twentieth drink
that got us drunk; it was the first! The first drink
was the one that did the damage. The first drink
was the one that started us on our merry-go-
rounds. The first drink was the one that set up a
chain reaction of alcoholic thinking that led to
our uncontrolled drinking.
A.A. has a way of expressing this: “For an alco-
holic, one drink is too many and a thousand are
not enough.”
Another thing that many of us learned during
our drinking days was that enforced sobriety was
generally not a very pleasant experience. Some of
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