"drink" in the Big Book

I forgot the strong warnings and the prejudices of my people concerning drink.

Out of this alloy of drink and speculation, I commenced to forge the weapon that one day would turn in its flight like a boomerang and all but cut me to ribbons.

Drink was taking an important and exhilarating part in my life.

I saw I could not take so much as one drink.

Someone had pushed a drink my way, and I had taken it.

Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice Day 1934, I was off again.

Of course he would have dinner, and then I could drink openly with him.

I pushed a drink across the table.

I have not had a drink since.

If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die.

This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day.

They have solved the drink problem.

Why can’t he?’’ “Why don’t you drink like a gentleman or quit?’’ “That fellow can’t handle his liquor.’’ “Why don’t you try beer and wine?’’ “Lay off the hard stuff.’’ “His will power must be weak.’’ “He could stop if he wanted to.’’ “She’s such a sweet girl, I should think he’d stop for her sake.’’ “The doctor told him that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up again.’’ Now these are commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time.

He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.

Yet let him drink for a day, and he frequently becomes disgustingly, and even dangerously anti-social.

If hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink?

We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men.

These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion.

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

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink.

We are without defense against the first drink.

How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, “For God’s sake, how did I ever get started again?’’ Only to have that thought supplanted by “Well, I’ll stop with the sixth drink.’’ Or “What’s the use anyhow?’’ 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.

Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.

If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the rightabout-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him.

Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!

Try to drink and stop abruptly.

Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has —that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men.

Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally.

We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.’’ Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever.

To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have.

For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether.

Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not.

What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink?

But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink.

We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.

Our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jay-walking.

Let him tell you about it: “I was much impressed with what you fellows said about alcoholism, and I frankly did not believe it would be possible for me to drink again.

I rather appreciated your ideas about the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink, but I was confident it could not happen to me after what I had learned.

Not only had I been off guard, I had made no fight whatever against the first drink.

I had commenced to drink as carelessly as though the cocktails were ginger ale.

I now remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me, how they prophesied that if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come—I would drink

They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink.

For most cases, there is virtually no other solution.’’ Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink.

Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory.

Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him.

Seemingly he could not drink even if he would.

The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again.

And with us, to drink is to die.

If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink.

The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly.

We must lose our fear of creditors no matter how far we have to go, for we are liable to drink if we are afraid to face them.

Show him the mental twist which leads to the first drink of a spree.

Show him, from your own experience, how the queer mental condition surrounding that first drink prevents normal functioning of the will power.

Admit that he probably knows more about it than you do, but call to his attention the fact that however deep his faith and knowledge, he could not have applied it or he would not drink.

And even though he continues to drink, the family will find life more bearable.

must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn’t think or be reminded about alcohol at all.

If you do this thoroughly, few people will ask you to drink.

Don’t start to withdraw again just because your friends drink liquor.

Our activities in behalf of women who drink are on the increase.

We want the wives of Alcoholics Anonymous to address the wives of men who drink too much.

Asked why they commenced to drink again, they would reply with some silly excuse, or none.

Why could they not see that drink meant ruin to them?

He is worried at times, and is becoming aware that he cannot drink like other people.

But when he gets over the spree, he begins to think once more how he can drink moderately next time.

He admits he cannot drink like other people, but does not see why.

He will use that as an excuse to drink more.

It is possible to have a full and useful life, though your husband continues to drink.

You avoid the subject of drink­

If you and your husband find a solution for the pressing problem of drink you are, of course, going to be very happy.

In a weak moment he may take your dislike of his high-stepping friends as one of those insanely trivial excuses to drink.

He will be less likely to drink again, and anything is preferable to that.

Here, for instance, is a typical example: An officer of one of the largest banking institutions in America knows I no longer drink.

I pointed out that I had had nothing to drink whatever for three years, and this in the face of difficulties that would have made nine out of ten men drink their heads off.

Those who drink moderately may be more annoyed with an alcoholic than a total abstainer would be.

If he had these qualities and did not drink would he be worth retaining?

drink.

If he temporizes and still thinks he can ever drink again, even beer, he might as well be discharged after the next bender which, if an alcoholic, he is almost certain to have.

that you are not suspicious nor are you trying to run his life so he will be shielded from temptation to drink.

As ex-problem drink151 Alco_9781893007161_6p_01_r6.qxd 8/13/07 10:55 AM Page 152

Of course he couldn’t drink, but why not sit hopefully at a table, a bottle of ginger ale before him?

Again it was the old, insidious insanity—that first drink.

He has not had a drink since.

I drink like that.”

There was much talk about the mental state preceding the first drink.