Written by BIG BOOK PAGE 30
Chapter 3
MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think
he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. 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. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our in- nermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such inter- vals—usually brief—were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incompre- hensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progres- sive illness. Over any considerable period we get
worse, never better.
We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of
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