Frogs and Hot Water

Solitude:  The state of one who is completely alone, cut off from all human contact, and sometimes stresses the loneliness of such a condition.


It strikes me often how alcoholism is a disease characterized by isolation in the extreme.  It slowly, slowly cuts us off from all human contact.  We're around people at the start, most of us, but we keep stepping back, a little at a time, until we can barely see other folks, way off on the distant horizon.  It's really quite awful to be that alone.  It happens so slowly that we don't know it's happening.  It reminds me of the story about the frog sitting in a pan of cold water on the stove - if you slowly, slowly heat up the water the frog doesn't notice it, eventually being boiled to death.


That story is total bullshit, of course.  The frog gets out of the pot.  The frog isn't as stupid as the practicing alcoholic.


One of the best gifts of recovery is that we begin to build real relationships again.  The Book talks about our total inability to form a healthy relationship with another person.  It reminds us that we have to quit fighting everyone and everything.  It suggests that if we don't this fighting can kill us.


Personally, I don't want to be killed.