Page: 33
Step we are on: Step One
Subject: The "Man of Thirty"
We are still in the Step One section of the book.
- If we can manage to stay sober for a period, will it be better when we start again?
Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever.(Note: If you were able to stay sober for a spell, was it better or worse when you started drinking again?)
- If we really want to stop drinking for good and all, what is a condition that must be met?
If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.
Immunity - Freedom from obligation, exemption from natural, ordinary liabilities, evils or misfortunes.The Winston Simplified Dictionary – 1938
There are two mentions of immunity in the Big Book, one is immunity from alcohol; the other is immunity from drinking.
Immune to alcohol? Hold, on. Not quite.
As to the first immunity: NO – real alcoholics will never be immune to EtOH, as we have been physically damaged beyond that point. Save for a pancreases transplant, which no one will give you without a new liver too and if they would you won’t be cover for the procedure by your Health Plan -- so just fuhgetaboutit!
The second immunity, (freedom) from drinking – YES! (See page 89 if you would like to become familiar with that idea, or just wait until we come to it in this study)1) So immunity from alcohol? – No sir! Not gonna do it.2) Immunity from the obsession to DRINK the stuff? – Absolutely! It is our experience. It happens every day to anyone who recovers from the hopeless combine of physical and mental, cyclical dysfunction of brain and body – we (and the 100 men and woman who wrote “Alcoholics Anonymous” a syndrome ) have nailed an understanding, for over seventy five years - called alcoholism."Immunity" isnot a dirty word. “While it is true that as an alcoholic we will never be immune to alcohol - we will always have an abnormal reaction, craving, if any whatever enters our system but as recovered alcoholics we are indeed immune from drinking. The obsession is removed - not the allergy.
That is what is meant by recovered! Immunity - “Freedom from alcohol”? - eh, not so much. Freedom form anger? yes. Freedom form self-will. Good! We are never freed from what alcohol will do with us once the slightest amount of it enter our system.Freedom from alcohol is really is not an idea proffered by the co-authors through their Book. Although it is tossed around a bit by others less familiar with the volume. (Not unfamiliar, just less familiar. It is freedom (immunity) from DRINKING alcohol about which the Big Book co-authors write as is within their experience. Not freedom from the effects of alcohol.No man or woman is free from the negative effects of alcohol, alcoholic or not.We are never free of the deleterious physical effects alcohol has on our bodies - not once we have "crossed the line" to complete (fold two) of the vicious cycle delineated in the Big Book. But if you haven’t learned the two fold description in this book yet, which permits us to see this clearly, then please stay tuned.
We will never be able to say recovered from anything which we do not grasp description of – and this is the crux of biscuit when it comes to the disagreement between recovered and recovering misunderstanding – the two sides aren’t on the same page with “description of the alcoholic”.
If we do not 'get' the AA description of the alcoholic detailed din the first forty-three pages of the Big Book -- we can never explain it properly to a real alcoholic enough to ring his chimes -- and we certainly aren’t going to win any debate in the weathered recovered vs recovering issue, because like those who haven’t got a clue - we won’t have one either. Just not armed with the facts.Who wants to watch two dogs pissing in an ally? It isn’t fun, educational nor does it enlightening. It certain doesn’t carry the THIS message of the magnificent spiritual text, story and prayer book, “Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism”We can and DO recover from “our description” – it is the description of others, outside of the Big Book co-founders description, that many of us cannot fit – nor can anyone ever recover from.
At least not the kind of problematic drinking (real alcoholism) the AA co-founders state was their intent to address and was solved within themselves.Doctor Drew is pure genius when it comes to the physiologies of drug addiction, human sexuality and medicine - absolutely brilliant - I wish I had his brain capacity - but he just hasn't' yet 'gotten' alcoholism. He is missing one perspective that would would explode his usefulness beyond limits but he just misses it -- by one hair.No one is ever going going to recover from Drew’s (or any classically trained medical brainiac) idea of the “alcoholic” because his description is “anyone who experienced consequences from drinking" and that is too broad to mean anything beyond a "market".
Say what?That is a hundred percent of the population! ($)Alcohol is a toxic food substance - not a drug - and will poison and make sick ANYONE who consumes it. The more anyone does it, the more the negative consequences mount. No one is immune to THAT! Not even non-alcoholics. The substance abuse industry will never go broke with that idea will they because anyone can be a ‘customer’. This will become abundantly clear as we go on. It is not rocket science – it is just rockets. Please hang on.
Peace & Love
Danny S – RLRAReal Live Recovered AlcoholicTOMORROW:• Will many of the young ones be successful in such self-imposed sobriety?
• Might this lead young people also try the “The Man of Thirty” approach to
• Will young folks really want to stop for good and all?
• Why will they be unable to stop even if they want to?
Peace & LoveDanny S – RLRAReal Live Recovered Alcoholic
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