Bitter morass of self-pity
 

"No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.

"Trembling, I stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice Day 1934, I was off again. Everyone became resigned to the certainty that I would have to be shut up somewhere, or would stumble along to a miserable end. How dark it is before the dawn! In reality that was the beginning of my last debauch. I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes."



(All excerpts used are solely from the First Edition of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.)



I read the Big Book before I dared to venture out to my first AA meeting.

This was the passage that changed my life. For the first time, I realized that my alcohol problem is not unique -- and there is a solution.

Thank you all for showing up to those meetings. We need each other.

Thank you for being there as well brother of another mother.

We feel hopeless when we exhaust all our options, when we have tried every resource at our disposal and nothing has worked to control our drinking let alone enable us to stop. Self-will and other human resources are marvelously effective for certain things but are pitifully inadequate when faced with alcoholism.

The hopelessness we feel can level our pride, removing a barrier to our recovery. This hopelessness can produce in us a willingness to accept the solution offered us by the authors. The first step of this solution is the admission that we are powerless over alcohol----that our lives are unmanageable.

Bill, by admitting to himself his powerlessness, takes his first step. Perhaps we feel as hopeless as Bill. Are we able to control our drinking once we start? Are we unable to quit drinking despite our sincere desire to do so? How have the things we have tried to overcome drinking worked for us? Can we admit that alcohol is more powerful than we are? If we can, then we have taken the first step toward recovery.

More is required to recover from alcoholism than the first step. The fear of the certain consequences of drinking may keep us sober for varying lengths of time. Many of us never want to forget how horrible that last days of our drinking were, but reliance on our memories to keep us sober rarely works for long. The proof of this is that we continue to drink long after we realize the damage drinking has caused in our lives and to our health.

The inability to stop based solely on our knowledge of the consequences is described many times in the BB. The authors describe this as the insidious insanity of the first drink.

The image of being catapulted is one of no return. Once the rope is cut we are on our way. We cannot image the life we will find. Until we experience it, we believe that this way of life is unavailable to us.

We learn this new way of life by practicing the program outlined in the BB. The results of the way we are living now should make us willing to change. The authors promise of happiness, peace, and usefulness are in stark contrast with our alcoholic life.

I so relate to this....it wasn't the knowledge of my alchoholism that began my recovery..but rather the hope and belief that something different was possible! thx

"Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate."