What Alcoholism Is

In rereading some of my old notes I'm impressed by how many references there are in our literature to the insidious nature of the disease of alcoholism.  There is some good, practical information here.  My first sponsor always encouraged new people to read The Doctor's Opinion in the belief that the doc did a good job of explaining what alcoholism is: a weird allergy and an even weirder obsession.  We have a physical reaction and we have a mental over-reaction. 

The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us; first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process.

And we see some warnings about our experience with alcoholism: you're not going to be able to use your smarts and you're not going to be able to use your willpower and if you don't believe us head over to the bar and try to control your drinking. See how that works out for you. Courage? Bullshit. Determination? Fuck it. You don't have the tools to defeat this scourge.

Absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.

. . . so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence is no good whatever.

He has been convinced that he has more problems than alcohol, and that some of these refuse to be solved by all the sheer personal determination and courage he can muster.

The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.  Why don’t you try some more controlled drinking?

Finally, we're reminded and re-reminded and over-reminded that we do not have this. We have lost the ability to drink normally. If we drink we're going to have problems and that's compounded by the fact that we don't even know what's going on.

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.

. . . their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly hard to solve.