Restless, Irritable, and Discontent

"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.  The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false.  To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.  They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks."  Big Book P.P. XXVI. 

Those are powerful words written by Dr. Silkworth, a physician who was instrumental in promoting Alcoholics Anonymous in our earliest days.  As you'd expect from a medical doctor his words factual and dispassionate.  Blunt, almost.  "This is what you're up against," he seems to be saying.

Later on comes this: "Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy.  ... we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole."  Big Book P. XXVII.   That's a pretty amazing admission from a physician, a group of people not world renowned for their humility.  He's basically saying: "We got nuthin.' Listen to these laypeople who've been sober for a few months."  When's the last time you saw a doctor just throw up his hands?  Or even worse - admit they have no idea how to solve a problem?

For some reason this section brought to mind a guy I knew when I lived in Indianapolis.  He was a successful businessman, outgoing and confident; forceful, in fact, in his confidence.  When he was still drinking he got on a reading jag, starting with some books on how to influence other people before moving on to some that promoted positivity in one's life.  He was out on the golf course with some friends, playing terribly, forcibly inflicting false positivity on everyone, when one of his buddies said: "What are you talking about?  You're in the sand trap.  You've been in the rough all day.  You're playing like shit."

I think the connection is that this is the kind of person that Dr. Silkworth dealt with for years and years with little to no success.  It's like trying to explain to a non-alcoholic what it's like discussing the problems and consequences of heroin addiction to a heroin addict who, in the throes of addiction insanity, doesn't want to quit.  You're talking to an insane person.  You'd think it would be pretty easy to make a case that there's a better way to live but the person you're talking to - an alcoholic or an addict who suffers from an allergy and a compulsion - is insane at that moment.