Page 35 - More About Alcoholism

Page: 35

Step we are on: Step One

Subject: Mental Condition, Two Fold illness, Pre-lapse, Relapse


Good morning. We are now on page 35. This week we are going to be getting into Jim the Salesman's story. Be prepared to see an angle you may not have previously considered in the Jim the Salesman story.

Understanding Jim's story is essential in understanding the co-authors "description of the alcoholic".

If we don't get this --- then we will not get this description of 'alcoholism'. And if we don't get this description then what is the point of using this Book at all?

• Why describe the mental condition?
  

for obviously this is the crux of the problem.

Crux – 1. a hard point to settle, 2. a puzzle, 3. the essential part of a matter,
The Winston Simplified Dictionary – 1938

• What is the question at this point?

What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink?

Comment: Refer to the first paragraph on page 30 for the answer: “The idea that somehow, someday......”

• In what state are the alcoholic’s friends and why? The rest of paragraph

Friends who have reasoned with him after a spree which has brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy are mystified when he walks directly into a saloon. Why does he? Of what is he thinking?

Comment: For answers to the “why” and “what,” again refer to the first paragraph on page 30, same as Question (P) 3.

As we study Jim’s story, look for similarities between Jim's mental glitch and your mental glitch with regard to obsession and how that plays into the physical glitch. (Once we start it is impossible to stop -- but we also can't 'not start')

We are about to see that alcoholism is NOT merely a behavioral problem. Heavy drinking, even to the point where the liver rots out, the kids have run away and the money is all gone, IS a behavioral problem. But Jim was not merely misbehaving! Still having an alcoholic mind he was struck drunk unexpectedly - succumbing to a two fold illness - despite being presented with the absolute necessity to stop drinking or he would lose all.

TOMORROW:

• What kind of family did Jim have?
• What had he inherited?
• How was his war record?

Peace & Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com