Been a lot of talk lately by newcomers looking for an alternative to AA. I even came across a woman who is trying a program that claims to help you drink like a normal person by monitoring yourself or something like that. I couldn't stop laughing when I read the post. I want you to know that inquiries such as these have been going on for a long time. People are always trying to look for a way to control their drinking. They just can't fathom turning their life over to a higher power greater than themselves.
If you take the time to read this I think you will find it very interesting. And I'm sure there are many members of AA on here that can definitely relate to this story.
1972
The Easier, Softer Way
BY: R. W. | VAN NUYS, CALIFORNIA
Science may come up with that panacea for alcoholics, but most of us in AA like what we have
I'VE ATTENDED a few seminars on alcoholism, listened to and read a flock of opinions, studied treatments and various therapies. It is amazing how many professionals are now stating flatly that alcoholism is curable, that it isn't a disease, but an illness of the emotions, and that once a person is sober and armed with the facts about himself, he can drink socially. (Of course, it is also indicated that he shouldn't take more than a couple of drinks during any one sitting!)
On the other hand, our Big Book says (on page 31), "There is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet." The book goes on to say (page 39), "The actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and reemphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience."
I do not decry the increasingly widespread efforts of the professionals engaged in the treatment of alcoholism. By and large, they are dedicated and faithful to what they are doing and trying to do. Our hats are off to them. But I do take issue with those vocal few who tend to regard AA as a relatively quiescent entity, allowing as how it has had some success in the treatment of alcoholics, but now it is time for science to move in and do the job properly. Yes, AA has had some success, thirty-seven years of it--not the full-blown, massive, in-the-millions success we would hope for, but still better than any other agency, any therapy, cult, or religion can attest to. Therefore, it is most important for me to remember how our Big Book describes alcohol--"cunning, baffling, powerful"--and to remember that alcohol is also jealous and patient. The ego will try with every refined method at its devious command to find some way-out, around, over, under, or through the idea that a proven alcoholic can't drink again.
This brings to mind one particular chap who came to AA, sobered up, and became involved in a professional therapy advocating the theory that alcoholics could drink normally once they had their problem in hand. After two years of AA sobriety, plus his new training, the man wrote two books on alcoholism. That was fine; we all applauded his efforts. What was catastrophic was that he went out and tried on some of the theories he'd learned and written about. He got drunk and hasn't been able to find sobriety yet, and that happened two years ago.
The object lesson, for me, is a truth I never want to forget: I can do anything and go anywhere I want to if I work the AA program first, in all my affairs.
It is true that Alcoholics Anonymous has been successful with only a segment of the alcoholic population. AA, as a therapy, works best, but how can we give people something they possibly think they don't want, or just can't accept, like a power greater than themselves? The figures on the number of alcoholics in this country are constantly, enormously expanded. A few years ago, it was said there were four or five million, then six to ten million, then nine to twelve million. Some recent pollsters posit up to twenty million alcoholics out of the eighty million social-to-heavy drinkers. It would be a crime to consign alcoholics arbitrarily to death or insanity if they can't make the AA program; methods, treatments, something must be found to cope with a situation which in one way or another personally affects every individual in this country, drinker and nondrinker alike.
If, after a sufficient period of sobriety, a member of AA wants to get all the knowledge he can about the cause of our illness, there's nothing wrong with that. The danger lies in getting so hooked on another therapy, which promises a cure, that the member cons himself into going out and laying some track!
After all, other therapies rarely recognize the spiritual, sickness-of-the-soul aspect of my disease. Not only was it graphically exhibited when I was drinking, it remains one of the big, continuing problems which best me from time to time alter twelve years of trying to five the AA way of life. I get off the road, take back the reins, try to handle people, places, and things on my own, my way. That is, I try until I get so up-tight, strung-out, emotionally bombed that something has to give. That giving, I've found, is a return to the God (as I understand Him) whom I found in AA when I was sick to death, and gave up.
Then, it was quite simple. But as my new sobriety progressed, so did my sick ego begin to revive and reassert itself. After sobriety, I found to my consternation that I was also, and always had been, a chronic suicide! Rejection in any form flipped me out; immediately, my ego shouted to me that it was time to knock myself off. Instead, I knocked my ego off by attendance at more meetings, involving myself with others, sharing my experience, strength, and hope, listening to others do the same, working with someone else at every opportunity--and opportunities are endless in AA.
A few months ago, I talked with a lady who'd just spent three days in jail. Her husband had taken the kids and vanished. She'd lost her job and her house. When I asked her whether she'd ever tried AA, her reply was "Oh, that isn't dignified!" Another man called our clubhouse, and his question was "I think I'm an alcoholic, but isn't there some other place to go than AA, some other way to get sober?"
Our Big Book points out that many alcoholics try to find "an easier, softer way." And so they do, through jails, psychiatry, hospitals, nut farms, health spas, tons of self-knowledge. Those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to accept a power greater than ourselves should count our blessings daily--that's called gratitude. I bought it, and still do, when I was told that scientists will find a cure for alcoholism only when they find a hypodermic needle long enough to reach a man's soul.
Many thousands of us have found our sobriety through the spiritual program of AA. Let's hang on to it with a deathless spiritual grip, one day at a time, ". . . praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Keep coming back, and ". . . you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny." Ours is the "easier, softer way."
