43395

The term,'real alcoholics' is first used in the first sentence of Chap.3,'More about alcoholism,' of ,'Alcoholics Anonymous' otherwise known as,'The Big Book' simply because the first edition was printed on thick paper increasing its size.
Albeit that this was written by the first 100 people to get sober, other than the information provided in that chapter there's no other definition of what a ,'real alcohjolic' is, in fact at AA meetings I've been chided for using that term, even laughed at.
No problem, alcohol-ISM is a disease of ignorance it therefore follows that to understand a disease is the first step necessary to take the action necessary to recover, in my case it was necessary for me to understand that alcohol can do for me what it doesn't do for anyone else, unless of course they are like me, a 'real alcoholic'.
So what is this thing that alcohol can do for me apart from the fact that I have, as Dr.Silkworth (see ,'The Doctors Opinion' in the BB) a ,'physical allergy' so that my body doesn't digest alcohol at the same rate as,'normal social drinkers' which in turn sets up the mental craving. The one thing that alcohol can do for me, no matter where I am or what my circumstances it instantly makes everything AAARRLLRRIIIIGGHHTT! In reality of course it doesn't. I've no intention of describing the misery that follows, I'm sure we are all well aware of this.
Having then identified myself as a,'real alcoholic' I can then get better, which I did, in my case I also realised as the old saying goes,'Procrastination is the thief of time' so personally I'd recommend cutting out all the ,'why's and wherefores' and pursuing the theory outlined in Orcam's razor, cutting out all the extraneous matter and dealing with the crux of the problem.Mike W.


All BB quootes are from 1st. Edition

Catkill23

I belive a real alchoholic is one that needs to have a drink to cope with anything. This throws alot of people in there, maybe 95% of the population.

Of that percentage there is another large percentage of people who have an anarchy point of view on life and say **** it. This causes problems. We anarchy people still have that problem after alchohol, but we don't have the alchohol to speak and write in public out loud. We can better cope with society. Otherwise everyone is an alchoholic, some just were brought up to pretend and deal with society better.

shaun00

*They are restless, irriable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks*..

Doomed if i NOT drinking.

*After they succumbed to the desire again,as so many do,and the phenomenon of craving develops,they pass through the well known stages of a spree,emerging remorseful,with a firm resolution not to drink again.This is repeated over and over*.

Doomed if i drink.

i have the problem right there..
now i need a solution that doesnt involve willpower........because im all out of that...
my minds sick......and i have no power what so ever with concerns to alcohol..

The solution.......to find a power big enough to bring about a complete renewing of my mind ......i call him god...over the years ive heard him being called lots of things..as long as he has all power who cares.

with sufficent step work i can clear a path to that god......with continued work i can keep that path clear and mantain my recovered state.

thats my tenpence worth.

*all quotes are taken from the book alcoholics anonymous first edition*

JeremiahS

Pretty much sums it up. What I have any 1st stepper or interested person read, the very beginning of the book for a reason (Doctor's opinion)

24hrsAday

i was At A Meeting Yesterday Talking With A Old Timer (Who i First Met in 1989') He Had 13 Years Sober and Had Just "Went Back Out" When i First Met Him.. We Were Talking About Real Alcoholics Like Us.. He Now Has Been Sober Over 14 Years!!! it is Cunning Baffling and Powerful!

Pagekeeper

My understanding is that a "real alcoholic" develops the phenomena of craving after they take the first drink. The POC is also referred to as a "physical allergy."

For me, I had no problem understanding what that phrase meant. In fact, the first time I read it I knew exactly what it meant. It was that sensation I got after I started drinking, that feeling of not being able to get high enough, a compulsive urge for more and more alcohol. It's why I couldn't drink fast enough. It's why I couldn't do anything else if my glass was empty besides panic and figure out how to fill that glass again. Once booze enters my system, I have a one-track mind: more alcohol. It was agonizing and incredibly uncomfortable to stop once I started, and if put into a situation where I could only have a few drinks? Well, I'd rather have none. A few just made me crazy for more.

It is my understanding that the phenomena of craving is what distinguishes myself from other drinkers. They don't experience that insane compulsion after they start drinking. They may like the effects and even drink too much, but if they have to stop after 3 or 4, they don't suffer to the same extent. They just go to bed or find something to take their mind off it. For me there's no such thing. Once that switch has been flipped, no human power can turn it off.

The mental obsession has nothing to do with how I digest or process alcohol. I've developed that mental obsession after not having had a drink for 15 months. There was no booze in my system. I don't know what the mental obsession is. To me, it's much more mysterious than the phenomena of craving as it can strike after years of sobriety. What seems to keep it at bay is the continuous process of personal inventory and restitution, conscious contact with a power greater, and service. Like Dr Bob said: clean house, trust God, help others.

24hrsAday

i Like To Keep it Simple.. Easily Said and Not So Easily Done Sometimes! i Know What Will Happen if i Pick Up A Drink.. it Will End Badly!!! i Just Don't Know Exactly How!

43395

First of all thanks to CarolD for moving my original thread to this forum, the responses say it all, secondly it has now been found in ,'real alcoholics' that the ,'physical allergy' referred to by Dr.Silkworth consists of two dimensions firstlyas the enzymes that breakdown the carbohydrates(alcohol) at a much slower rate than the normal 1oz per hour their is an obvious build up which in turn sends messages to the brain,the 2nd mental dimension saying,'Give me more@ setting up the vicious cycle we knowso well!

Ally this with the fact that for a ,'real alcoholic' one drink, and it's never one is it, we all know that, makes everything alright, pouf! instantly and the stage is set with the usual, miserable results.

Which is why the first 100 sober alcoholics who pitched in with Bill W. to write the first 164 pages had got it right, abstinence together with everything else that's written on those pages, which to me have never lied, is the only cure. Mike W.

yeahgr8

For me a real alcoholic is one who needs a spiritual awakening to recover from alcoholism...i am a real alcoholic thank God:-)

Music

I'll take your word on the above. I gave up trying to analyze all that technical stuff years ago. Alcoholism is either a disease, or it isn't! I'm not going to argue that point either. All I know is when I drink, I do things and say things that cause me problems. For me it's just that simple.

From the Big Book: "But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink."

The very first time I drank at age 18, I lost all control of my liquor consumption and spent the next 16 years or so trying to control it. Never quite learned how. I almost lost everything trying to prove I could drink like a normal drinker......whatever the hell that is. So, the above definition is good enough for me.

CAPTAINZING2000

There wasn't nothing real about drinking. It was one big escape from reality. Never made me smarter, better looking or richer.

It was all an illusion I deluded myself into thinking!!

Cathy31

What makes it even more cunning, baffling and powerful is that I have AT TIMES (see that big book story "Crossing the River of Denial") "controlled" my drinking. That often gave me 'hope' I was not alcoholic and kept me drinking for years and years after I suspected I had a problem. When I first came to AA that's what kept me drinking, when I heard about the allergy I thought, my alcoholic mind told me, yes, but that doesn't HAPPEN EVERY TIME! What about that time you DID drink like a lady, particularly after a period of abstinence. The fact that that happened a couple of times a YEAR didn't make an impression - it kept me DIFFERENT enough to stay sick.
Great thread
Cathy31
x

Cathy31

Perfect!

Cathy31
x

Boleo

"But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink."

"The tragic truth is that if a 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.
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. 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."

"We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better."

"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish."

43395

The BB provides a more than adequate description of a ,'real alcoholic' as shown in the previous reply, so point taken, no problem. In my drinking days I for one would admit to all of this but others could drink with impunity, not me I always made a fool of myself. . . . .and eventually it got worse, as it always does.
For an idiot like me, a 'real alcoholic', determined beat this thing and drink like others, hell I was as normal as the next person, course I was.
I didn't even know I was ill, suffering a hangover, no money etc.etc. but I wasn't ill. Alcohol-ISM is an illness of ignorance.
When, for numbnuts here it was explained that 1) I suffered a physical and mental allergy to alcohol, combined with 2) the fact that alcohol had an effect on me that it didn,t have on,'normal social drinkers', I had the glimmerings of an understanding that I wasn't quite the same, in one respect as other people and it just might be against all the odds that,'your hero here,might be not only a heavy drinker, alcohol dependent but an actual,'real alcoholic' , when that sunk in I was able to accept my condition and for me acceptance is the fiundation of the First step. MikeW.

24hrsAday

i Never Wanted To Admit i Was Alcoholic.. i Know i'm Not Alone in That!

LaVallette

Crikey, the above describes me to a "T". I knew I had a problem, but...man... Guess I've got some soul-searching and processing to do. Might be time to actually READ, I mean really, really READ that Big Book....

Ananda

thanks boleo..I was of the impression that the type of alchoholic for whom AA is designed (the steps) is one with BOTH the physical alergy and the Mental obsession. Glad i hadn't mis-remembered.

I avoid the term "real alchoholic" because my expereince was that it put up a wall between me and AA...or allowed me to put up the wall rather...

Although I try not to water down my expereince, I also prefer not to be one of the people that are refered to in the bb when it says "burn the idea into the conciousnous...that he can get sober REGARDLESS OF ANYONE" for me that sometimes means regardless of the people in AA.

At this point i am just going with that there may be many types of alchoholics with many recovery methods possible...but that I am the TYPE of alchoholic for whom the bb and steps were designed and for my type it is the only method that has been effective.

Boleo

"You can get well in the rooms of AA and find plenty of company.

You can stay sick in the rooms of AA and find plenty of company.

It just depends who you choose to listen to."

(Joe H.)

43395

The quote from Joe H. about the rooms at AA meetings, I foundto be very true, it was not until I washanded a copy of a Big Book Study taken by Charlie P. and Joe H. that I began to understand the first 164 pages of the Big Book. At the start of themeeting held I believe in Huyton, Liverpool, UK great emphasis was placed on the fact that niether was it an AA meeting nor sponsoredby AA. It was, what it was a Big Book study no more no lessbut it worked for me and went some way to increasing my all round understanding of the disease of alchol-ISM. Mike W.