" . . . drinking careers . . . "
Career: A profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling; a person's progress or general course of action.
Don't you just love that he calls our drinking a "career?" I know I ejected two promising careers used in the colloquial sense as a job path because my interest was more in the lines of excessive drinking.
"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death."
Obsession: A persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea.
Astonish: The emotional impact of overwhelming surprise and shock; astounded.
Persistent: Continuing firmly or obstinately in a course of action despite difficulty or opposition; continuing to endure over a prolonged period.
Illusion: A deceptive impression of reality.
I will refrain from pursuing a deeper investigation into the concepts of a "gate of insanity or death." These concepts stand on their own merits.
"The delusion that we are like other people . . . has to be smashed."
Delusion: A false belief about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary; something that is believed to be true but that is actually false.
Smash: Violently break into pieces.
I love that there are kind of two classes of verbiage: the mental illness contingent (insanity, delusion, obsession) and the vigorous action contingent (smashing, pursuing, deceiving).
... pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. Over any cosiderable time we get worse, never better."
Incomprehensible: Impossible to understand; unintelligible.
Over any considerable time we get worse, never better. That is as good a line as I've found in The Big Book.
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