Powerlessness in the Big Book

The remorse, horror and hopelessness of the next morning are unforgettable.

I had to be, for I was hopeless.

While I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given me.

W e, of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill.

Doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body.

But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.

In the doctor’s judgment he was utterly hopeless; he could never regain his position in society and he would have to place himself under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected to live long.

Several of our crowd, men of thirty or less, had been drinking only a few years, but they found themselves as helpless as those who had been drinking twenty years.

I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated.

They grinned, which I didn’t like so much, and then asked me if I thought myself alcoholic and if I were really licked this time.

They piled on me heaps of evidence to the effect that an alcoholic mentality, such as I had exhibited in Washington, was a hopeless condition.

One of these men, staff member of a worldrenowned hospital, recently made this statement to some of us: “What you say about the general hopelessness of the average alcoholic’s plight is, in my opinion, correct.

As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from divine help.

To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable. 2.

Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.

If you are satisfied that he is a real alcoholic, begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the malady.

But you may talk to him about the hopelessness of alcoholism because you offer a solution.

The more hopeless he feels, the better.

You would suppose that men in the fourth classifi­ cation would be quite hopeless, but that is not so.

How can they rise out of such misery, bad repute and hopelessness?

Our hope is that when this chip of a book is launched on the world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it, to follow its suggestions.

Hopelessness was written large on the man’s face as he replied, “Oh, but that’s no use.