St_Kurt

Hello! I am practically the "guru" the disease concept of Alcoholism at my local club due to a lead I did a few months back and much of my talk is based around this book. I did the initial research about the physiology myself, but after people pronounced my first draft "too medical", I purchased both "Under the Influence" and "Beyond the Influence" to read for another perspective. I was happy to find that my research and the book's matched very well (used many of the same source articles). Plus it was a lot easier to read than what I wrote!

I rewrote my lead with both the Big Book and those two books as a framework. That way I could recommend further reading for those wanting to know more than I could give in an hour. (The lead takes a whole meeting because I request that people interrupt to ask questions and share during it rather than afterwards.)

It's been my privilege to have given the lead now at several beginners meetings and the local rehab facilities and it's what I learned from this lead that has kept me around. Some of those patterns I do fit and I recognise that. I have never had a blackout, but the part about the "performance upgrade" while drinking in was something that I did see before it went away. Drinking became much less interesting when that happened though.

Thanks
~SK