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The alcoholic is a sick person suffering from a disease for which there
is no known cure that is, no cure in the sense that he or she will ever
be able to drink moderately, like a nonalcoholic, for any sustained
period. Because it is an illness — a physical compulsion combined with
a mental obsession to drink — the alcoholic must learn to stay away
from alcohol completely in order to lead a normal life.
Fundamentally,
alcoholism is a health problem — a physical and emotional disease —
rather than a question of too little willpower or of moral weakness.
Just as there is no point blaming the victim of diabetes for a lack of
willpower in becoming ill, it is useless to charge the problem drinker
with responsibility for the illness or to regard such drinking as a
vice.
Alcoholism takes many routes. Some A.A. members drank in
an out-of-control way from their first drink. Others slowly progressed
over decades to uncontrolled drinking. Some alcoholics are daily
drinkers. Others may be able to abstain for long periods. Then they cut
loose on a binge of uncontrolled drinking. The latter are called
"periodics."
One thing all alcoholics seem to have in common
is that, as time passes, the drinking gets worse. No reliable evidence
exists that anyone who ever drank alcoholically has been able to
return, for long, to normal social drinking. There is no such thing as
being "a little bit alcoholic." Because the illness progresses in
stages, some alcoholics show more extreme symptoms than others. Once
problem drinkers cross over the line into alcoholism, however, they
cannot turn back. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 January 2005 )
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Alcoholic in your life? 
What do I do if I am not an alcoholic but someone I love is in trouble.
