Are Alcoholics Crazy?

Page: 38

Step we are on: Step One

Subject: The Jaywalker, Mental Condition, Insanity, Two Fold illness, Pre-lapse, Relapse, Normal vs. Abnormal, Crazy, Obsession

Good morning I hope all of you are having a good weekend.

Is this Jaywalker fellow here off his rocker, or what?

Crazy – insane, mad, showing or rising from an insane condition

The Winston Simplified Dictionary – 1938

• What happened the day he left the security of lock up?

But the day he comes out he races in front of a fire engine, which breaks his back.

Note: Does this parallel any experience you might have had. Say, getting out of a rehab or even just after a long gut wrenching “soul talk” with a loved one, for all the grief just caused.

• What label would you and everyone else put on this guy?

Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he?

Note: What label would people who know you place on you?

• Is this illustration ridiculous? 2 sentences

You may think our illustration is too ridiculous. But is it?

• What will we real alcoholics admit?

We, who have been through the wringer, have to admit if we substituted alcoholism for jay-walking, the illustration would fit us exactly.

“I’ll never do it again honey” – “I’ve learned my lesson this time” You are SURE that the horror, embarrassment, and loss of self-esteem and position will be enough to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Peace & Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Page 37 - More About Alcoholism

Page: 37
Step we are on: Step One
Subject: Mental Condition, The Jaywalker, Obsession, Insanity

Good morning. We are about to start looking at the Jaywalker.

The fictional character is only an allegoric device but it does help the co-authors illustrate the very real insanity and obsession as they relates to drinking for all real alcoholics. It gives the reader a glimpse at one part of the two-fold description of alcoholism.

It is a beginning as Step One unfolds in the first forty-three pages of their book.

The character can be entertaining, certainly not holding the viscerally powerful depiction that true life stories about real insanity have - the kind we draw upon and tell when Twelve Stepping a prospect -- but for the co-authors purposes it sure does assist in pointing all readers of this book in the right direction in understanding the real alcoholic description.

Even non-alcoholics find the fictional Jaywalker character funny-- and poignant too since they don't identify with his absurd behavior with respect to alcohol they probably do in other areas of their lives - like food and sex.

• Do we occasionally decide to get drunk and then go do it?

In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk,

• What prompts us to do such a crazy thing?

feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like.

• What are we obliged to admit after such a binge?

But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened.

• What do we come to understand when we start drinking deliberately?

We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually,

• At this stage of the disease, can we imagine what the consequences will be when we start drinking?

there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.

Comment:

As we learn the story of the Jay-walker, even though it is fictitious, we can look for the similarities between that crazy nut and us -- the real chronic alcoholic and make a begin moving toward understanding what the co-authors are trying to tell us about the malady in their very special description.

Peace & Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com