There is a Solution

We are people who normally would not mix.

The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution.

...with the alcoholic illness…there goes the annihilation of all things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents – anyone can increase the list.

None of us makes a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think it's effectiveness would be increased if we did.

A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs.

All of us spend much of our spare time in the sort of effort which we are going to describe.

Most of us sense that real tolerance of other people's shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect for their opinions are attitudes which make us more useful to others.

Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs.

... but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.

He is always more or less insanely drunk.

He has a positive genius for getting tight at exactly the wrong moment, particularly when some important decision must be made or engagement kept.

He is often perfectly sensible and well-balanced concerning everything except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish.

He often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes, and has a promising career ahead of him.

As matters grow worse, he begins to use a combination of high-power sedative and liquor to quiet his nerves so he can go to work.

…our behavior patterns vary.

We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop.

Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.

And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have.

... In their hearts they really do not know why they do it.

There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game.

… but everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will.

We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago.

When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked up, may die or go permanently insane.

...we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.

We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.

The central factor of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.

We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives:  One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; or the other, to accept spiritual help.

This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort.

He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude.

Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences.

Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.

… while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience.

…a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God.

If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.