The Disease

"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false”. ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, The Doctors Opinion pg. xxvi-xxvii~

At first glance someone might look at the above passage and not fully digest how powerful this statement is. It could easily be written off as Dr. Silkworth just saying that alcoholics cannot differentiate the true and the false of how injurious alcohol is, but this statement goes way beyond that.

If someone admits that they are doing harm to themselves, and still inflict injury by doing the same thing over and over again, how crazy are they? It is sort of like sticking one’s hand on a hot frying pan. Wouldn’t it be totally insane to keep on doing it? This is where the gravity of the statement “they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false” comes into play. Someone who cannot differentiate between what is true and what is false is crazy.

Whoa now! Hold on! Crazy is a strong word. Well how is it that we can explain doing something that we know is harming us over and over again? Albert Einstein coined the well know definition of insanity as: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Old Albert was a pretty wise man!

Now we can start to see where being crazy or insane pretty much defines the alcoholic. We take in alcohol because of the effect that it produces. Our senses like the feeling that we get from it! Plain and simple! The problem is alcoholics like this feeling so much that it becomes habit. We habitually seek the feeling produced by alcohol . This becomes so flagrant that we lose control of our senses, both mentally and physically. This is called a pathological condition or dis-ease.

You may wonder why it is that I separate the word disease. Dis is a prefix meaning not, and ease means comfort. So we’re not at comfort with ourselves. How can we be? We know that we are hurting ourselves with the intake of alcohol, but we like the feeling we get so much that it no longer matters to us. So yes alcoholism is definitely a disease, a disease cause by insanity.

We just are not hurting ourselves with this insanity either. This disease transcends the physical and mental aspects of our health. This disease spreads with-in our circle. We affect everything that we come in contact with. Not only other human beings, but also our immediate environment. This is addressed in the Big Book with the quote: "The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others”. ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Into Action, pg. 82~ We certainly roar our way through the lives of others, but if we look back at the destruction we cause, it does not only involve human life, but all of the other creations of God.

This all caused by not having the ability to differentiate between true and false. So what is true? What is false? How do we know the difference? Well true is consistent with being real. It is reality or actuality. I like the definition “That which is”. False is simply “that which is not true”. Seems simple to differentiate? Huh? Well for alcoholics it isn’t.

It seems to me that the alcoholic is delusive. We might just say, “OK, the alcoholic is delusive about the first drink”, but I contend it goes deeper than that. It seems the alcoholic is delusive about life. It all boils down to this delusion being caused by self. This being the delusion that comes from the belief of self being the most important thing. That personal gratification is more important than anything else. This leaving out the factor of there being so many other things happening than what is going on in one’s mind. Therefore the delusion exists in the mind of the alcoholic. The mind is tricked into not knowing the difference.

So how does the alcoholic overcome this dilemma? Well it is covered in step #2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. All it takes is a belief. We might ask this Power to grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Ah! Serenity, calm, at ease. 

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