Thoughts on "A Vision For You," page 151

[nandm]

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom, and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends, and a feeling that life is good. Big Book page 151 sentance 1-3

We are not anti-alcohol, anti-drinking or anti-anything. People who are able to control their drinking have no need to abstain. We do not concern ourselves whatsoever with anyone else's decision to drink or not.

But not so withus in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt----and one more failure. Big Book page 151 sentances 4-9

One old timer said that "Once we are pickled, we can never be cucumbers again." The truth of this statement has been borne out in the vast experience of AA members. Once we lose our ability to control our drinking, it is gone forever.

Momentarily we did-----then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen----Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Big Book page 151 sentance 14

We experience terror that we are out of control, bewilderment that despite our firm resolve we have gotten drunk again, frustration that our willpower can not brink about the life that we desire, and despair that we will ever rise out of the mire into which we are sinking.

What are your thoughts and experiences regarding this passage?
How does this passage compare to your drinking experience?
What are your thoughts on "once an alcoholic always an alcoholic?"
We the Four Horsemen present at the end of your drinking career?
If they were, what did they signify to you?