Chapter 3

MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM

(pp. 44-53)

Most of us struggle to admit that we are real alcoholics. Just like everyone else, we dislike feeling different or unusual. We want to be normal, regular people. So we spend a lot of time and energy trying to prove that we can drink like normal, regular people. We believed that somehow, someday we will be able to control and enjoy our drinking. Since we cannot, we fail over and over again. It is astounding how long we continue trying to prove that we aren't alcoholics! Some of us do it until we lose our minds—or die.

Any of the links below will take you out of here.

Over time, we have learned that the first step in recovery is to completely accept that we are alcoholics. The false belief that we are like other people, or more specifically like other drinkers, must be smashed. As alcoholics, we have lost the ability to control our drinking. We have lost this ability permanently. There may be short periods of time when we feel like we have taken control. Then we begin to relapse, and then we lose control completely. In fact, it is usually worse. Whenever this happens, we feel like we have failed completely in our lives and may never be worthy again. We are convinced that we have an illness that only gets worse, and never better.

There is no treatment, program, or medication that will make alcoholics the same as normal drinkers. We have tried every treatment we could find, and nothing worked. Doctors who treat alcoholic patients also agree that it is impossible to turn an alcoholic into a normal drinker. Maybe someday scientists will find the secret, but they haven't done so yet.

We have a huge amount of evidence showing that alcoholics cannot control their drinking, but some alcoholics stubbornly believe that they still can. They will insist that they can drink like normal people whenever they want. They will say they can quit whenever they want. They will experiment and argue, trying their hardest to show that they are in charge of their actions.

Many members of A.A. have experimented with their drinking in this way. Here are some of the ways we have tried to prove that we can drink normally:

• Drinking beer only
• Limiting the number of drinks we drink at one time
• Never drinking alone
• Never drinking in the morning
• Drinking only at home
• Never keeping alcohol in the house
• Never drinking during business hours
• Drinking only at parties
• Switching from liquor to wine
• Drinking only natural wines
• Agreeing to resign from our jobs if we ever get drunk at work
• Swearing that we will never drink again
• Reading inspirational books
• Spending time at health spas
• Going into treatment for alcoholism voluntarily

This list could go on forever. As you might have guessed, none of these experiments has changed us into normal drinkers.

We don't like to label other people as alcoholics, but you can try this experiment and decide for yourself. Go to a bar and start drinking. Force yourself to stop drinking suddenly. Do it more than once. Doing this will show you how much control you really have. Even though you may not feel well later, the experiment may be worth it.

Many of us believe that we might have been able to stop if we'd decided to do so earlier in our lives. Whether or not this is true is hard to say. Few alcoholics truly want to stop while they have any chance at success.

However, there are stories of people who showed signs of alcoholism and were able to stop drinking for a long period of time simply because they tried their hardest. Here is one of those stories.

Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic

Once there was a 30-year-old man who was doing a lot of binge drinking. During this time, he felt very nervous when he woke up in the morning. He calmed his nerves with more booze. This man was eager to be successful in his career, but realized that he would fail at his job if he drank at all. He knew that once he started, he had no control over his drinking. So he decided that until he had succeeded in the business world, he wouldn't take a single drink.

He kept this promise to himself. He didn't drink at all for 25 years, and retired at age 55 after a long and happy career. He began to believe that this long period of abstinence from alcohol meant he could drink like a normal person. (Many alcoholics tell themselves this lie.) So he began to experiment with drinking occasionally. After just two months of this he was in the hospital, feeling confused and humiliated.

Once he was released from the hospital, he tried his best to stop drinking and found that he just couldn't do it. He had enough money to pay for any kind of counseling or treatment he might want, but nothing helped. Everything he tried failed. Although he was a perfectly healthy man when he retired at age 55, he died just four years later.

This story contains a powerful lesson. Most of us think that if we stop drinking for a long period of time, that means we can begin to drink normally. This man was dry for 25 years. As soon as he started to drink again it was as if he had never stopped. Members of A.A. have a saying, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” We have seen this saying come true again and again. If we plan to stop drinking, we need to do it knowing that we will not be able to experiment with drinking ever again.

Younger people reading the story above may feel hopeful. When they hear that this man stopped drinking for so long just by using his willpower, they may think they can do the same thing. If any of those people were to try it, they probably would not succeed. Most of them don't truly want to stop drinking, and being young doesn't make it easier. Some people who have been drinking for just a few years struggle to stop as if they had been drinking for decades. You don't have to drink for a long time, or drink large quantities of alcohol, to be a serious alcoholic.

And even if you can stop drinking for a year, or five years, or ten years, you may still be an alcoholic. In fact, you probably are. We don't say this to make you feel shameful. It's simply a fact.

You don't have to drink for a long time or drink huge amounts of alcohol to become changed by your drinking. Some alcoholics start drinking and then spiral out of control in a few years. And some drinkers would be insulted if you called them alcoholics to their faces, but are totally unable to stop drinking. We at A.A. are familiar with the symptoms of alcoholism, so we see potential new alcoholics everywhere. Especially among young people.

When we meet with someone who isn't sure if they are an alcoholic, we challenge them to stop drinking for a whole year. If they are an alcoholic, it is very likely that they will fail. But even if they do succeed in avoiding liquor for a year, they might still become alcoholics later on. Many of us have been sober for a year at a time, and became serious drinkers after that. Being able to stop for a long period of time isn't enough. We think that most people who read this book would struggle to stay sober for a year. Some will be drunk one day after making the decision to stop drinking. The rest will be drunk within a few weeks.

How to tell if you are an alcoholic

One of the most frustrating things about alcoholism is that it affects all alcoholics equally. People who want to stop drinking and people who don't want to stop drinking will both be unable to get sober. People who are good-hearted and people who are cruel will continue to drink uncontrollably. People with strong willpower in all other areas of life will have zero willpower when it comes to drinking. Alcoholism doesn't care who you are or what you've done.

So how do you know if you are an alcoholic yourself? The quickest way is to go to a bar and try to control your drinking. Let yourself drink for a little while, then make yourself stop very suddenly. Try to do this more than once over a few weeks. If you are honest with yourself, it won't take long to see the truth.

If you don't want to try this experiment, you don't have to. The members of A.A. have learned to see and understand the signs of a relapse. We know how alcoholics think. We know how they're feeling when they want to stop drinking and cannot do it. Throughout this book are stories of real alcoholics who share their own experiences. If you read these stories and recognize yourself in them, then that is all you need. You are one of us.

Let's start with the story of a man we will call Jim. He ran a successful car dealership that had been started by his father. He had a lovely wife and family. He was a war veteran, a talented salesman, and a well-liked member of his local community. He seemed quite normal, except that he had a nervous personality. He didn't start drinking until he was 35, but his drinking became serious very quickly. Soon he lost his car dealership. Within a few years, he started to become uncontrollably violent when he got drunk. Jim went into a hospital psychiatric ward, and when he was ready to leave, he found out about the A.A. program.

He started the program and felt hopeful at first. He moved back in with his family, and began to work as a salesman for the car dealership he had lost through drinking. Everything seemed to be going well. But Jim didn't try to connect with a Higher Power. That meant he wasn't fully committed to A.A. He was only doing some of the things he needed to stay sober.

Soon, he was getting drunk again many days in a row. He was surprised and upset when this happened. Each time he spoke with other A.A. members to figure out what he'd done wrong. He didn't want to get drunk, so why had he done it? Where had he slipped up? He knew he was a real alcoholic and in serious trouble. He knew he would have to go back to the psychiatric ward if he kept drinking, and that he would lose his family. He didn't want any of those things to happen.

But he got drunk again. Some friends of his in A.A. asked him to explain exactly how it happened. This is what he told them:

“I came to work on Tuesday morning. I remember I felt angry that I had to work as a salesman at the dealership I used to own. I talked with the boss, but nothing serious. Then I decided to drive into the country and see one of my customers. On the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside restaurant where they have a bar. I was not planning to drink. I just thought I would get a sandwich. It was a restaurant I had been going to for years, so I thought I might find a customer for a car there. I ate there many times during the months when I was sober. I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk.

“Suddenly I had a thought: If I put an ounce of whiskey in my milk, it couldn't hurt me on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I had the feeling I wasn't being very smart. But I told myself it was OK since I was drinking the whiskey on a full stomach. The experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into more milk. That didn't seem to bother me so I tried another.”

This is how Jim ended up in a psychiatric ward again. He knew that he might have to go back into the hospital if he drank. He knew he might lose his family and his job. He also knew that drinking made him feel terrible, both physically and mentally. He had plenty of knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. And he ignored it all when he decided it would be “safe” to drink whiskey if he just mixed it with milk.

The mind of an alcoholic

You may think Jim's story is an extreme case. To anyone in our Fellowship, it is not. It shows the same kind of thinking that all of us have experienced. Some of us may have thought more about what might happen after we drank, or got drunk, or went on a binge. But the way our minds work is tricky. We could imagine the awful things that would happen after drinking, but we could always find an excuse to take that first drink. Trying to reason with ourselves never worked for long. The unreasonable need to drink always won. The following day, we would truly have no idea how it could have happened.

There are also times when we go out to get drunk on purpose. This usually happens when we can use the excuse of feeling nervous, angry, worried, depressed, jealous, or some other strong emotion. But even when we do this, we can look back on our choices and see our excuses were weak. Especially when we consider the chaos that our drinking created in our lives. Any one of us will tell you that when we began to drink regularly instead of casually, we almost never thought about the consequences of our actions.

Alcoholics are able to ignore the ways that first drink might impact our lives. This is both strange and puzzling, of course. We think it compares to the thoughts of someone who is obsessed with jaywalking.

Imagine a person who gets a thrill out of walking in front of fast- moving vehicles. She enjoys doing this for a few years even though people in her life have warned her to stop. You might just think of her as a foolish woman with a strange definition of “fun.” Then her luck runs out and she gets injured a few times, right in a row. If she thought like a normal person, you would expect her to stop jaywalking altogether. But she doesn't, and soon she gets hit by another car and fractures her skull. A week after leaving the hospital, a speeding bus breaks her arm. She says she has decided to stop jaywalking for good, but in a few weeks she breaks both legs.

This continues for several years, and all that time she continues to promise she'll be careful. Or she says she will keep off the streets altogether. Finally, she loses her job, her spouse demands a divorce, and people start to make fun of her. She tries everything she can think of to get jaywalking off her mind. She goes into rehab, hoping to cure herself. But the day she gets out, she races in front of a fire engine, which breaks her back. This behavior just doesn't make any sense to us. Someone like that must be deeply troubled, right?

This story may sound ridiculous at first … but is it? Those of us who have suffered from alcoholism will quickly admit that it sounds familiar. If we swapped alcoholism for jaywalking, the story would fit us exactly. Even if we are smart and sensible in all other areas of life, when alcohol is involved we seem almost insane. It's strong language, but to most of us it feels true. We feel as though we have lost our sanity.

Some of you are thinking, “What you're describing makes sense, but it doesn't apply to me. I have some of these symptoms, but not all of them. I haven't gone to the same extremes as the people in these stories. And I won't, especially now that I've read their stories and understand myself better. I haven't ruined my entire life through drinking. I won't ruin it now, thanks to this new information you've shared with me.”

Some people who aren't alcoholics can stop drinking or control their drinking. Some people who drink without thinking or drink heavily can stop drinking or control their drinking. Their brains and bodies are not affected by alcohol in the same ways as ours. Actual alcoholics will be absolutely unable to stop drinking no matter what. Learning that they are alcoholics will not help them. Actual alcoholics will be absolutely unable to stop drinking just because they want to.

We will make this point over and over again so it is sure to sink in.

Drinking without thinking

Let's look at another story to show how important it is to accept that alcoholics are different from regular drinkers. A man we will call Fred is a partner at a well-respected accounting firm. His income is good and he has a nice home. He is happily married, and he's the father of kids who are ready to go to college. He makes friends easily. He's respected at work, and appears to be a stable, happy man. But he is an alcoholic.

About a year ago, Fred went to the hospital with a bad case of jitters. It was his first time experiencing the jitters and he felt ashamed. He was not ready to admit that he was an alcoholic. Instead, he told himself he came to the hospital to rest his nerves.

The doctor hinted to Fred that his health might be worse than he realized. This made Fred feel depressed, and he decided to quit drinking altogether. He never thought that he might not be able to quit. Although he began working with A.A. members while at the hospital, he still wouldn't accept that he was an alcoholic. He liked some of the ideas he had heard, and he admitted he had some of the symptoms of alcoholism. But he still believed he could stop drinking if he just put his mind to it. He felt sure that the humiliation of going to the hospital would keep him sober the rest of his life. His new knowledge from A.A. would help, too. Self-knowledge would fix his problem.

Fred left the hospital and seemed to do fine for a while. A few months later, he was back at the hospital, and his shakes were even worse. He was eager to talk with other A.A. members. He told them a story that illustrates everything we have been saying throughout this chapter. Fred was absolutely convinced he had to stop drinking. He had no excuse for drinking. He showed real judgment and determination in other areas of his life, yet he was totally powerless to stay sober.

Here's what he told a few members he was close to:

“I was impressed with what you told me about alcoholism, and I truly didn't believe it would be possible that I would drink again. I liked how you described the ‘insanity' that comes before the first drink. But I was confident that would not happen to me after what I had learned. I felt like I wasn't as serious a drinker as most of you. I had been able to deal with my other personal problems in the past. Because of that, I believed I could stop myself from drinking. It seemed like all I needed to do was use my willpower and stay alert.

“I felt like this for a while, and it worked at first. I had no trouble saying ‘no' to drinks. I began to wonder if I was making a big deal about nothing. One day I went to Washington to present some accounting evidence to a government bureau. I had been out of town before during this ‘dry' spell, and I had not had a drink then. So there was nothing new about that. Physically, I felt fine. I wasn't especially worried or anxious either. My business went well, which I knew would make my partners happy. It was the end of a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky.

“I went to my hotel and changed my clothes for dinner. I went into the dining room. The thought came to mind that it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with my dinner. That was all. Nothing more. I ordered a cocktail and my meal. Then I ordered another cocktail. After dinner I decided to take a walk. When I returned to the hotel, I decided I wanted a cocktail before going to bed. So I stepped into the bar and had one. I remember having several more that night and plenty the next morning. I have a hazy memory of being in an airplane flying to New York, and finding a friendly taxi driver at the airport instead of my wife. The driver drove me around for several days. I barely remember where I went or what I said and did. Then I woke up in the hospital feeling sick and overwhelmed.

“As soon as I could think straight, I tried hard to remember that evening in Washington. I realized I hadn't even tried to resist that first drink. I started to drink liquor like it was as harmless to me as ginger ale. I remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me. They said if I had an alcoholic mind, I couldn't avoid drinking again. They said that no matter how hard I tried, someday I would find an excuse to drink. And I realized right then that I did have an alcoholic mind. I saw that willpower and self-knowledge would not help me. Nothing could help me during those strange times when my brain turned itself off and I started drinking without thinking. Before that, I never understood people who said their drinking defeated them. I knew then. I felt crushed.

“Two of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous from the hospital came to see me. They grinned, which I didn't like so much. Then they asked me if I thought I was an alcoholic after all. I said I was. They told me that the way I had acted in Washington was called the ‘alcoholic mentality,' and that it was a hopeless condition. I couldn't beat it on my own. I believed them.

“Then they told me about the importance of connecting with a Higher Power and how the A.A. program worked. They said more than 100 of them had followed the program and successfully gotten sober. I had never gone to church very often, but what they told me about the spiritual side of A.A. didn't seem too odd or unreasonable. The actions I would need to take as part of the program made sense. They also sounded hard. I would have to change some beliefs that I'd had throughout my whole life, which wouldn't be easy. But as soon as I decided to join the program, I had this strange feeling that I would find relief soon. That turned out to be true.

“Soon I discovered that connecting with a Higher Power was the missing piece. Since I found that, my life has felt more satisfying and enjoyable. My old way of living didn't feel bad at the time. Still, I wouldn't trade the best moments of that life for the worst moments I have now. I wouldn't go back to it even if I could.”

Fred's story shows how confusing and upsetting the alcoholic mentality can feel. Especially if you don't know what it is or why it's happening to you. We hope that some of you readers recognize yourselves in his story. Fred had only started to struggle with his alcoholism when he joined A.A. Many alcoholics have to do more damage to their own lives before they decide to address their drinking.

Many of the doctors and psychiatrists we've spoken to agree with our conclusions. They know that we cannot stop ourselves from drinking, and that willpower is never enough. One of these doctors, a staff member at a world-renowned hospital, made this statement to A.A.'s founders:

“What you say about the hopelessness of the average alcoholic is correct, in my opinion. I have heard the stories of two of your founding members. I have no doubt that they would have been 100% hopeless if they had not connected to a Higher Power. If they had come to my hospital for treatment or detox, I wouldn't have taken them as patients. That's how bad they were. Alcoholics who are that sick are too heartbreaking. I am not a religious person myself, but I have deep respect for the spiritual aspect of A.A. For most alcoholics, there is no other workable solution.”

We'll say it once more: At certain times, alcoholics have no mental defense against the first drink. They cannot stop themselves from drinking. No other human being can stop them from drinking. The only way to stop is to create a meaningful relationship with a Higher Power.