Decoding the Big Book - There Is A Solution

there is a solution is the second chapter Bill wrote when he started the big book. In this chapter he concludes that the real problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than in his body. The alcoholic has no idea why he took that first drink. And this complete lapse of common sense and willpower can only be explained by admitting that he suffers from some form of temporary insanity.

real problem for the alcoholic is in his drinking, but rather his thinking specifically during the moment just before he takes the first drink. Fortunately, there is a solution. Bill explains that taking certain actions, including self searching, leveling a pride and confession of sins is necessary. He admits that no one likes the idea of doing this. Bill reaffirms that alcoholism is a disease as discussed in the

doctor's opinion. He talks about how doctors and family can have a hard time breaking through to a problem drinker, but an ex problem drinker who has found the solution in the book can break through where others cannot. In there is a solution. Bill spells out the purpose of the book to answer the question of how and why we recovered from the hopeless condition of

alcoholism. He seeks to have the reader identify as one of two kinds of drinkers the moderate take it or leave it kind, and the heavy drinker who may have health problems but can still moderate or stop. The real alcoholic is different. Bill had a huge problem in how to write this chapter and what to include.

away. Bill uses this as an example of how self-knowledge without a spiritual solution won't work. Bill walks through the Jekyll and Hyde drinker who, when he drinks, is seldom mildly drunk. This type is insanely drunk when he starts drinking, even when doing so could cause him harm. When Bill wrote the big book, his focus was on the low bottom drunk. He was not looking at someone who we might consider to have a high bottom or a grey area drinker who had

not lost everything. Now recovery can be found before everything is lost. Bill sets up the program of recovery by talking about the need for help and how doing it alone did not work. If you're an alcoholic, you need to go beyond human aid to help, which nudges us towards the need for a power greater than ourselves to stay sober. If we could do this alone or with human aid, we'd be sober now. Bill spends the rest of the chapter making the case for the need for a vital spiritual

experience. Bill uses William James to explain that there is no need for a God centered solution tied to any particular set of beliefs. He's trying to get the reader to accept a spiritual solution for their problem without tying it to a particular religion or dogma. This is a break with the view of the Oxford groups, which dictated a view of first century Christianity. Bill is trying to get the alcoholic to an onramp to the need for a power greater

than themselves. He uses the writing of William James as he was one of the most revered American psychologists of the time. Bill is threading a needle with his spiritual solution. He has some powerful forces on his side. Dr. Bob, for example, has adopted the hard religious solution at the time, the Akron group would identify more with the Oxford Group and Dr. Bob as their leader rather than an AA

12 step program. On the other hand, you have Hank Parker standing next to Bill as he dictates to Ruth Hawk, who wanted a pure psychological approach. Bill Wilson, in the end, is trying to explain alcoholism why people can't stop and why they will not be able to without a spiritual experience.

Chapter two. There is a solution. We have Alcoholics Anonymous. No thousands of men and women who are once just as hopeless as Bill. Nearly all have recovered. They have solved the drink problem. We are average Americans. All sections of this country and many of its occupations are represented as well as many political, economic, social and religious backgrounds. We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness and an understanding which is

indescribably wonderful. We are like passengers of a great liner. The moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table. Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement

which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. The tremendous fact for everyone of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news. This book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. An illness of this sort. And we've come to believe it is an illness. Involves those about us in a way

no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer, all are sorry for him. And no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness. For with it, there goes annihilation of all things worthwhile in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferers. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgust at friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents.

Anyone can increase the list. We hope this volume will inform and comfort those who are or may be affected. There are many highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us, have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his situation and without reserve. Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the

doctor. But the problem ex drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours until such an understanding is reached. Little or nothing can be accomplished that men who is making the approach is have the same difficulty that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a

man with a real answer. That he has no attitude of holier than thou. Nothing whatever, except the sincere desire to be helpful. That there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured. These are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach, many take up their beds and walk again. None of us make a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. We feel that elimination of our drinking is

but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs. All of us spend much of our spare time in the sort of effort which we're going to describe. If you are fortunate enough to be so situated that they can give nearly all their time to their work, if we keep on the way we are going. There is little doubt that much good will result, but the surface of the problem would

hardly be scratched. Those of us who live in large cities are overcome by the reflection that close by hundreds are dropping into oblivion every day. Many could recover if they had the opportunity we enjoyed. How, then, shall we present that which has been so freely given us? We have concluded to publish an anonymous volume setting forth the problem as we see it. We shall bring to the task our combined experience and

knowledge. This should suggest a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem of necessity. There will have to be discussion of matters medical, psychiatric, social and religious. We are aware that these matters are, from their very nature, controv. Nothing would please us so much as to write a book which would contain no basis for contention or argument. We shall do our utmost

to achieve that ideal. Most of us sense that real tolerance of other people's shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect for their opinions are attitudes which make us more useful to others. our very lives as ex problem drinkers depend on our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. You may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us become so ill from drinking.

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. If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking What do I have to do? The purpose of this book is to answer such questions specifically. We shall tell you what we have done before going into a detailed discussion. It may be well to summarize some

points as we see them. How many times people have said to us, I can take it or leave it alone? 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? If the hard stuff is willpower, 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. There he is,

all lit up again. now, these are commonplace observations on drinkers, which we hear all the time. Back of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstand ing. We see these expressions refer to people whose reactions are very different from ours. Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone. then we have a certain type of hard drinker. He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him

physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficiently strong reason ill health. Falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor becomes operative. This man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention. But what about the real alcoholic? 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. Here is the fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control. He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking. He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is seldom mildly intoxicated. He is always more or less insanely drunk. his disposition, while drinking resembles his normal nature, but little. He may be one of the finest fellows in the

world. Yet let him drink for a day and he frequently becomes disgustingly and even dangerously anti-social. He has a positive genius for getting tired at exactly the wrong moment, particularly when some important decision must be made or engagement kept. He is often perfectly sensible and well balanced concerning everything except liquor. But in that respect, he is incredibly dishonest and selfish. He often possesses special abilities, skills, aptitude, and has a promising career ahead of him.

He uses his gifts to build up a bright outlook for his family and himself. And then pulls the structure down on his head by a senseless series of sprees. He is a fellow who goes to bed so intoxicated he ought to sleep the clock around. Yet early next morning, he searches madly for the bottle He misplaced the night before. if he can afford it. He may have liquor concealed all over his house to be certain. No one gets his entire supply away from him to throw down the

waste pipe. As matters grow worse, he begins to use a combination of high powered sedative and liquor to quiet his nerves so he can go to work. Then comes the day when he simply cannot make it and gets drunk all over again. Perhaps he goes to a doctor who gives him morphine. or some sedative with which to taper off. Then he begins to appear at hospitals and sanitariums. This is by no means a comprehensive picture of the true alcoholic. As our

behavior patterns vary. But this description should identify him roughly. Why does it behave like this? If hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all of its attendant suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink? Why can't he stay on the water wagon? What has become of the common sense and willpower that he still sometimes displays with respect to other matters? Perhaps there never will be a full answer to

these questions. Opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts differently from normal people. We are not sure why once a certain point is reached. Little can be done for him. We cannot answer this riddle. We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years,

he reacts much like other men.We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol or whatever into his system, something happens both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this. The observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his

mind rather than his body. If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really make sense in the light of the havoc. An alcoholics drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of a man who having a headache beats himself on the head with a hammer so he can't feel the ache.

If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off or become irritated and refuse to talk. Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink. Then you have some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time, but in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. Once this malady has a

real hold a baffled lot. There is an obsession that somehow some day they will beat the game. They often suspect they are down for the count. How true this is. If you realize in a vague way their families and friends sense that these drinkers are abnormal. But everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will. The tragic truth is that if the man is a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive. has

lost control. 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. this tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected. The fact that most alcoholics, for whatever reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink or so-called willpower, becomes practically non-existent.

We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month. We are without defense against the first drink, the almost certain consequences that follow, taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people.

There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, won't burn me this time. So here's how. Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. 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 sakes, how did I ever get started again?

Only to have the thought supplanted by, well, a stop of the strength or what's the use anyhow? When this sort of thinking is fully established in the individual with alcoholic tendencies, he probably has placed himself beyond human aid. and unless locked up may die or go permanently insane. Th stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcoholics throughout history. But for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more

convincing demonstrations. So many want to stop, but cannot. There is a solution. Almost none of us like the self searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. 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. When therefore we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved.

There was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence, which we had not even dreamed. The great fact is just this, and nothing less, that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude towards life, towards our fellows and towards God's

universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish these things for us, which we could never do by ourselves. If you are seriously alcoholic, as we were, we believe there is no middle of the road solution. We were in a position where life has become impossible, And if we had passed into the region for which there is no return through human aid,

we had to alternatives. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could. And the other to accept spiritual help. this. We did because we honestly wanted to and were willing to make the effort. a certain American

businessman had ability, good sense and high character. For years, he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted the best known American psychiatrist. Then he had gone to Europe, placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician, the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung, who prescribed for him through experience, had made him skeptical. He finished his treatment with unusual confidence. His physical and mental condition were unusually

good. Of all. He believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time, more baffling. Still, he could give himself no satisfactory explanation for his fall. So he returned to this doctor whom he admired and asked him point blank why he could not recover. He wished, above all things, to

regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well-balanced with respect to other problems. Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol. Why was this? He begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor's judgment, he was utterly hopeless. He could never again 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. That was

a great physician's opinion. But this man still lives and he is a free man. He does not need a bodyguard, nor is he confined. He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude. Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help.Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with his doctor. The doctor said, You have the mind of a

chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you. Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang. He said to the doctor, Is there no exception? Yes, replied the doctor. There is exceptions to such cases as yours have been occurring since early times here and there. Once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me, thes

occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and arrangements, ideas, emotions and attitudes, which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some emotional rearrangement within you with many individuals.

The methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with alcoholics. Of your description. Upon hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected. After all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctors, telling him that while his religious convictions were very good in his case, they did not spell the necessary vital

spiritual experience. Here was the terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had this extraordinary experience, which, as we have already told you, made him a free man We, in turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy read, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us, or if you prefer,a design for

living that really works. T distinguished American psychologist William James, in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience, indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God. We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which

faith can be acquired. if what we had learned and felt in seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed or color, are the children of a living creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. Those having the religious affiliations will find nothing here disturbing to their beliefs or ceremonies. There is no friction among us over such

matters. We think it no concern of ours what religious bodies our members identify themselves with as individuals. This should be an entirely personal affair, which each one decides for himself in the light of past associations or his present choice. Not all of us join religious bodies, but most of us favor such membership. In the following chapter, there appears an explanation of alcoholism as we understand it. Then a chapter

addressed to the agnostic. Many who were once in this class are now among our members. Surprisingly enough, we find such convictions no great obstacle to a spiritual experience. Further on clearcut directions are given, showing how we recovered. These are followed by 42 personal experiences. Each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view, the way he established his relationship

with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership in a clear cut idea of what has actually happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women desperately in need will see these pages. We believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say yes. I am one of these two. I must have this thing.

Appendix two is referenced in this chapter. App two Spiritual Experience. The term spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality changed sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism his manifested itself among us in many different forms.

Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily, for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. In the first few chapters, a number of sudden revolutionary changes are

described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics, such transformations, though frequent, are by no means

the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety, because they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often, friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life, that such a change could hardly be brought about by himself. What often takes place in the first few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of

self-discipline. With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsustainable lected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call

it God consciousness. Most emphatically, we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing His problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. We find that no one needs to have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are

indispensable. Quote. There is a

principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation and quote Herbert Spencer.