Controlled drinkers have no trouble conforming to this procedure, but alcoholics, who have lowered their physical resistance and exhausted their nervous system, should have medical help in starting rehabilitation.
Many members who ignore the importance of their physical well-being as an asset to recovery will fail to arrest their alcoholism. Some may recover, but they slow the process if they do not feel well physically.
We believe all alcoholics should be hospitalized upon request for help with the Alcoholics Anonymous program. This is not presently possible in all cases, so the members who cannot receive hospital care should consult a doctor who is skilled in the diagnosis and treatment of alcoholism.
The importance of this advice cannot be overemphasized. The alcoholic is a sick person who does not realize it and wishes to minimize his or her physical condition. This should not be allowed by the older members; they should point out the need for a complete physical checkup and see that the new member gets it.
Those who neglect the simple precaution of receiving ethical medical care are less apt to effect a speedy recovery from alcoholism.
The alcoholic whose life has become unmanageable from uncontrolled drinking is taking a serious step in identifying with our program and attempting to make it a way of life. The alcoholic’s future security depends on the successful attainment of A.A. as a way of life. Alcoholics cannot allow impaired physical well-being to detract from chances of recovery; therefore, they must safeguard their health, as poor health may return them to drinking.
New members will benefit by investigating the various phases of alcoholism that apply to their cases; they must admit they are alcoholics and discuss their problems with older members who are always willing to offer advice and help.
Learn to see in alcoholism a diseased condition of the nervous system due to the excessive use of alcohol. Reflect upon your powerlessness over this sickness. Learn a number of the tests in the medical and psychological field that identify alcoholics. Admit you “can’t take it.” Consider your inability to take it or leave it alone; remember your inability to leave alcohol alone in the face of impending disaster. If you drink, it definitely marks you as an alcoholic. The necessity of a drink “the morning after” is common to most alcoholics. There are many other identifications of the alcoholic; make it your business to learn some of them.
The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous understood that members have to realize their physical illness and receive medical help before they can concentrate on the spiritual requirements necessary in recovery. Physical health is a necessity, but it is only the first step in recovery from our alcoholic illness.
Summarization. Recovery from alcoholism first involves a layperson’s knowledge of this illness and a conscious need for its treatment. There is no mystery about it. Addiction to alcohol has set up a poisoning within our bodies. Compulsive drinking, over which we are powerless, naturally follows. Our lives become unmanageable. The First Step of recovery is to recognize our alcoholism and admit our physical illness.
Why does this help? It makes us honest in evaluating our true physical condition. It makes us humble and willing to stop alcoholic rationalization. It awakens us to our need for hospitalization before entering A.A. and for medical care afterwards.
Why are we sick? Can we be cured? Real alcoholics are sick from poisoning acquired by substituting alcohol for food and rest. Physical health can be restored, but no cure will permit us to become controlled drinkers.
Treatment. Admitting our alcoholism. Willingness to accept medical treatment. Proper diet and relaxation. Belief we can recover. Daily practice of our A.A. program.
Drugs
Occasionally, some of us have resorted to drugs for physical comfort or to induce sleep. This practice is out for all alcoholics, except those rare cases where an ethical medical practitioner, skilled in the treatment of alcoholism, prescribes and supervises such treatment.
We live the A.A. program to develop normal, well-integrated personalities that exclude the use of the narcotic, alcohol. Drugs prevent this change in personality. They warp our thinking. They too quickly become a substitute for alcohol and are decidedly habits forming for most of us.
STEP TWO
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Two deals with mental illness. However intelligent we may have been in other respects, wherever alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. It’s strong language, but isn’t it true?
No alcoholic acts sanely while drinking. Chronic poisoning from alcohol results in compulsive drinking and insane behavior. Willpower is not a factor in recovery until the compulsion has been removed. Since reservations defeat any honest at tempt to stop drinking, we find it necessary to recognize our mental instability. Dodging the truth only results in distorted thinking and opposition to help from a Power greater than ourselves.
Those of us who have had an honest desire to recover from the mental sickness that alcoholism has imposed upon us have successfully used this Power. Our sick personalities find a sure source of power and healing in God, as we understand Him.
God renews our minds and straightens our thinking.
Step Two opens a vista of new hope, when based on willingness and faith. What we call this Power is a matter of choice. Call It what we will. Naming It is unimportant.
The important thing is that we believe in It, that we use It to restore us to mental health and fitness.
Faith in a Higher Power is a basic law of recovery. It is always evident in the lives of successful members. What they have done, we can do. By practicing the Twelve Steps we gain a conscious contact with this Power to live in contented sobriety.
Mental handicaps stand between us and recovery. Our lack of self-criticism defeats an honest evaluation of our alcoholism. Use of the word sanity offends our false pride. We admit our illness but rebel against questions of mental soundness. This partial acceptance is a hazard to our sobriety. We benefit most from accepting Step Two with no reservations.
As a beginner, you will avoid confusion in the interpretation of this Step if you approach it with a sincere desire for the accepted A. A. meaning. Remind yourself that you are making the A.A. recovery program your way of life because it is essential to your recovery from alcoholism. Your life depends on this program along with your mental and physical well-being, your happiness, and the security of your home–your very life. It might be suicidal to disagree with any part of it, so resolve to be open-minded and accept the Twelve Steps in their entirety.
Some members have eventually arrived at the true meaning of Step Two by temporarily rephrasing it to read, “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sane behavior:’
The truth is most members have only acted insane during periods of intoxication.
This is common practice for all drinkers who get “tight,” but to the alcoholic who shortens the intervals between periods of intoxication and finally merges them into one long “drunk,” it becomes a serious matter. Insane behavior because of an evening’s drinking is generally excused, but when carried on for weeks and months that lengthen into years, it becomes a pattern that is fixed in the brain.
We cannot overlook the harmful effect of the prolonged use of alcohol or its unhealthy mental condition which results in complacent disregard of sane thought or normal behavior. Using alcoholics cannot control their impulses; they lack mental coordination. Continued use of alcohol damages the brain and sometimes causes insanity.
Signs of such injury seem to exist in all alcoholics in proportion to their physical resistance to alcohol poisoning and to the length of time involved in abnormal drinking.
Alcoholics who cling to the illusion that they exercise sanity in their drinking