Have to agree with tomsteve here...that book is a golden oldie. In desperation and defeat i just started seriously applying exactly what it said to the best of my know how, come what may, and the insufferable urge to drink that had become my constant companion, just subsided exactly as it said it would.
But, if you aren't convinced, go try some more controlled drinking! Trying to shield ourselves, change of scene, the incessant mind battle proposed by the hard drinkers and potential alcoholics...just a merry go round for a more-far-gone alcoholic. Doomed. Ordinary willpower and common sense, the best resolutions, eventually give way before the OBSESSION to take a drink, immediately experiencing that relief....then the merciless LOSS OF CONTROL over the amount taken, then the poison soaked eventual destruction of whatever life we had been trying to build.
In time, the urge to do battle just isn't there.
We are without defense against that first drink. Our defense must come from a different tap, where proud modern man don't like to go. The tap just needs one key, and it is called 'willingness'. I believeit takes a surrender of the whole will, not just a partial experimental 'well as long as things go my way' lukewarm will. 'Seized with all the desperation of the dying, the flimsy reed turned out to be surprisingly substantial'.
Successive humiliations do a most wonderful job beating this into us
Self reliance is great as far as it goes, just it doesn't go far enough...