"drinking" in the Big Book

My attention was caught by a doggerel on an old tombstone: “Here lies a Hampshire Grenadier Who caught his death Drinking cold small beer.

Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it disturbed my wife.

My drinking assumed more serious proportions, continuing all day and almost every night.

Golf permitted drinking

But drinking caught up with me again and my generous friend had to let me go.

Next day found me drinking both gin and sedative.

I could eat little or nothing when drinking, and I was forty pounds under weight.

Near the end of that bleak November, I sat drinking in my kitchen.

We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning.

This should suggest a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem.

You may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us became so very ill from drinking.

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.

He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking.

His disposition while drinking resembles his normal nature but little.

Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic’s drinking bout creates.

At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail.

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

The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking.

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.

Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums—we could increase the list ad infinitum.

Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking.

Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking.

A man of thirty was doing a great deal of spree drinking.

He tried to regulate his drinking for a while, making several trips to the hospital meantime.

If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.

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.

But try and get them to see it!* As we look back, we feel we had gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our will power.

In the early days of our drinking we occasionally remained sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers again later.

So we shall describe some of the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking, for obviously this is the crux of the problem.

He did no drinking until he was thirty-five.

His family was re-assembled, and he began to work as a salesman for the business he had lost through drinking.

I had no intention of drinking.

Still no thought of drinking.

Here was the threat of commitment, the loss of family and position, to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always caused him.

Yet all reasons for not drinking were

We have not lost everything in life through drinking and we

Thanks for the information.’’ That may be true of certain nonalcoholic people who, though drinking foolishly and heavily at the present time, are able to stop or moderate, because their brains and bodies have not been damaged as ours were.

But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.

He made up his mind to quit drinking altogether.

The story he told is most instructive, for here was a chap absolutely convinced he had to stop drinking, who had no excuse for drinking, who exhibited splendid judgment and determination in all his other concerns, yet was flat on his back nevertheless.

If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.

Self-esteem committed her hus(fear) band for drinking.

Threatens to fire me for drinking and padding my expense account.

The best reason first: If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.

He is under constant fear and tension—that makes for more drinking.

Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past.

Telling them what we are trying to do, we make no bones about our drinking; they usually know it anyway, whether we think so or not.

Our drinking has made us slow to pay.

Because of resentment and drinking, he had not paid alimony to his first wife.

While drinking, he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly-hated business rival, giving him no receipt for it.

He saw that he had to place the outcome in God’s hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lost anyhow.

But drinking does complicate sex relations in the home.

P ractical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.

Ministers and doctors are competent and you can learn much from them if you wish, but it happens that because of your own drinking experience you can be uniquely useful to other alcoholics.

If he does not want to stop drinking, don’t waste time trying to persuade him.

They should wait for the end of his next drinking bout.

After a while, turn the talk to some phase of drinking.

Tell him enough about your drinking habits, symptoms, and experiences to encourage him to speak of himself.

If he is not communicative, give him a sketch of your drinking career up to the time you quit.

When he sees you know all about the drinking game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic.

If he sticks to the idea that he can still control his drinking, tell him that possibly he can—if he is not too alcoholic.

Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job—wife or no wife—we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.

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.

So our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking, if we have a legitimate reason for being there.

Why sit with a long face in places where there is drinking, sighing about the good old days.

While you were drinking, you were withdrawing from life little by little.

We are careful never to show intolerance or hatred of drinking as an institution.

We would not even do the cause of temperate drinking any good, for not one drinker in a thousand likes to be told anything about alcohol by one who hates it.

But many of the suggestions given here may be adapted to help the person who lives with a woman alcoholic—whether she is still drinking or is recovering in A.A. A further source of help is noted on page 121.

Our men have sworn great solemn oaths that they were through drinking forever.

When drinking, they were strangers.

Especially when he has before him a way to stop his drinking and abuse if he really wants to pay the price.

His drinking may be constant or it may be heavy only on certain occasions.

He is positive he can handle his liquor, that it does him no harm, that drinking is necessary in his business.

He often gets entirely out of hand when drinking.

He is remorseful after serious drinking bouts and tells you he wants to stop.

He enjoys drinking.

Perhaps you enjoy drinking with him yourself when he doesn’t go too far.

You have passed happy evenings together chatting and drinking before your fire.

Our next thought is that you should never tell him what he must do about his drinking.

Be determined that your husband’s drinking is not going to spoil your relations with your children or your friends.

But after his next binge, ask him if he would really like to get over drinking for good.

But don’t remind him of this after he has been drinking, for he may be angry.

Unless they actually need protection from their father, it is best not to take sides in any argument he has with them while drinking.

It may convince your husband he wants to stop drinking forever.

We thought, on the whole, we were pretty good women, capable of being nicer if our husbands stopped drinking.

It is probably true that you and your husband have been living too much alone, for drinking many times isolates the wife of an alcoholic.

If you are satis­ fied he really wants to get over drinking, you need not be alarmed.

Cessation of drinking is but the first step away from a highly strained, abnormal condition.

Now and then the family will be plagued by spectres from the past, for the drinking career of almost every alcoholic has been marked by escapades, funny, humiliating, shameful or tragic.

Let them remember that his drinking wrought all kinds of damage that may take long to repair.

Dad may feel that for years his drinking has placed him on the wrong side of every argument, but that now he has become a superior person with God on his side.

he could not, for his drinking placed him constantly in the wrong.

Drinking isolates most homes from the outside world.

We, who have recovered from serious drinking, are miracles of mental health.

Couples are occasionally dismayed to find that when drinking is stopped the man tends to be impotent.

Their young minds were impressionable while he was drinking.

After two weeks of drinking, he had placed his toe on the trigger of a loaded shotgun—the barrel was in his mouth.

I had discharged him for drinking six weeks before.

I had been obliged to discharge him for drinking, though he was brilliant, alert, and one of the best organizers I have ever known.

But I’m sure this man is done drinking.

If you desire to help it might be well to disregard your own drinking, or lack of it.

Drinking occasionally, and understanding your own reactions, it is possible for you to become quite sure of many things which, so far as the alcoholic is concerned, are not always so.

Whenever you want to, you control your drinking.

When drinking, or getting over a bout, an alcoholic, sometimes the model of honesty when

This is not to say that all alcoholics are honest and upright when not drinking.

He wants to quit drinking and you want to help him, even if it be only a matter of good business.

Suppose an approach is made something like this: State that you know about his drinking, and that it must stop.

Will he take every necessary step, submit to anything to get well, to stop drinking forever?

For most alcoholics who are drinking, or who are just getting

To get over drinking will require a transformation of thought and attitude.

But sometimes our drinking will be used politically.

One instance comes to mind in which a malicious individual was always making friendly little jokes about an alcoholic’s drinking exploits.

After your man has gone along without drinking for a few months, you may be able to make use of his services with other employees who are giving you the alcoholic run-around—provided, of course, they are willing to have a third party in the picture.

Do you want to stop drinking or not?

But if you cannot or will not stop drinking, I think you ought to resign.”

He remarked: “I’m mighty glad you fellows got over your drinking.

Alco_9781893007161_6p_01_r6.qxd 8/13/07 10:55 AM Page 151 F or most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination.

But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking.

Painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic.* When our friend related his experience, the man agreed that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking for long.

He had, of course, the familiar alcoholic obsession that few knew of his drinking.

He found himself surprisingly well received, and learned that many knew of his drinking.

As we shall see, he now means a great deal to his community, and the major liabilities of thirty years of hard drinking have been repaired in four.

Goes off his head completely when he’s drinking.

For an hour, the two friends told him about their drinking experiences.

He proved to be a devil-may-care young fellow whose parents could not make out whether he wanted to stop drinking or not.