Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in 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 makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that 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.
(My main problem centered in my mind, not my body. My mind can convince me a whole host of things are true if I am honest with myself. I made tons of excuses to drink-justify and rationalize, my mind feeds me reasons to put the poison in my system and to keep going back to the very thing that creates havoc and misery, over and over and over. And yes, very much like hitting myself with a hammer to relieve a headache.)
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 than 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, they are a baffled lot. There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game.
(Rarely did I tell the truth, but once in a while I did allow the truth to speak to me. In my heart I knew I had a problem, but I didn't know why until I came here and read the Doctor's Opinion. I thought I had just lacked self control and insufficient will power to just say no to myself. I couldn't "think the drink through" or "put the plug in the jug"....if I could have, I would have. God was the only power for me that could combat and overcome this cunning and baffling obsession)
But they often suspect they are down for the count. How true this is, few 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 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 absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.
(My family thought too it was a matter of self will..."Like just stop!! Why can't you be normal?!?" I am a real alcoholic because I fundamentally understand that no thing and no one could have relieved me from my obsession. I have no illusions about my powerlessness when it comes to drinking. I can't drink-period. I can never drink again. I am allergic to alcohol. I know once I start I will be unable to stop. That even if I have a powerful desire to not drink once I start, that desire will not overcome the monster of this disease.
This is a real monster, a real and powerful addiction that wants to kill me and take others down with me. To ignore the life and death reality of alcoholism with a watered down self-help program, is not AA. AA is about being selfless. I can't treat a selfish disease with more self. There are Self Help programs out there for those who aren't alcoholic, or alcoholic but need more outside help. But here, we are facing life and death issues. I shouldn't be using AA to feel better, I should be helping others to feel better which paradoxically will make me feel better. If when Bill W was feeling weak, down, tempted to drink choose "self help" instead of calling around to see if there were any drunks he could work with, he would have drank and AA wouldn't exist.)
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drinking. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. 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 ago. We are without defense against the first drink.