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39 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Page 17-
We are like passegers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when cammaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vesssel from steerage to the Captain's table. |
Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster doe not subside as we go our individual ways.
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Page 17-
The feeling of having shared in a common peril is... |
one element in the powerful cement which binds us.
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Page 17-
We have a way out on which we can absolutley 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.
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Page 18-
An illness of this sort-and we have come to believe it an illness-... |
involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can.
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Page 18-
If a person has cancer... |
all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt.
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Page 18-
But not so with the alcoholic illness,... |
for with it there goes the annihilation of all the things worth while in life.
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Page 18-
It brings misunderstanding,fierce resentment, financial insecurity,... |
disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents-anyone can increase the list.
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Page 18-
Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us have found it is impossible to... |
persuade an alcoholic to discuss his situation without reserve.
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Page 18-
But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with the facts about himself,... |
can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours.
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Page 18-
Until such an understanding is reached,... |
little or nothing can be accomplished.
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Page 19-
We feel that elimination of our drinking... |
is but a beginning.
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Page 19-
A much more important demonstration of our principles... |
lies before us in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs.
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Page 19-
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.
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Page 19-
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.
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Page 20-
Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend upon our... |
our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs.
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Page 20-
How many times people have said to us "I can take it or leave it alone. Why can't he?" "Why don't you try beer and wine?" Lay off the hard stuff.""His 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, but 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 ignorace and misunderstanding. We see that these expressions refer to people whose reactions are very different from ours.
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Page 20-
Moderate drinkers.. |
have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely. If they have a good reason for it. They can take it or leave it.
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Page 20-
Then we have a certain type of hard drinker. He may... |
have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically or mentally.
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Page 21-
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.
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Page 22-
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 one he takes any alcohol whatever in his system,... |
something happens , both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.
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Page 23-
Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers,... |
in his mind, rather than in his body.
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Page 23-
Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied with part of the time, But in their hearts they do not know why they do it. Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot. There is the obsession that somehow, someday,... |
they will beat the game. But they often suspect they are down for the count.
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Page 23-
How true this is, few realize. In a vague way their friends and family 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.
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Page 23-
The tragic truth is that if a man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive. He 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 absolutley no avail. This tragic situation has... |
already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.
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Page 24-
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable at certain times, to bring into conciousness with sufficient force the memory of... |
the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
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Page 24-
The almost certain consequences that follow 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.
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Page 24-
The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time, here's how!" Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. How often have some 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. These 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.
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Page 25-
There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of ou pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its sucessful consummation. Butwe 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.
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Page 25-
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.
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Page 25-
We have found much of heaven and we have been... |
rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
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Page 25-
The great fact is just this, and nothing else:... |
That we have had a deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.
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Page 25-
The central fac 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 those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.
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Page 25-
If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe... |
there is no middle-of-the-road solution.
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Page 25-
We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alteratives:... |
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.
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Page 27-
Here and there alcoholics have what are called vital spiritual experiences. To m these occurences are phenomena. They appear to be in the naure of huge emotional displacements and rearranggements... |
Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast one side, and a completley new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.
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Page 28-
We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has... |
proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God.
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Page 28-
A new life has been given us or, if you prefer,... |
"a design for living" that really works
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Page 28-
If what we have learned and felt ad seen means anything at all, it means that... |
all of us, whatever our race, creed, 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.
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Page 29-
Our hope is that... |
many alcoholic men and women, desperatley in need, will see these pages, and believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say "Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing."
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