Who has a drinking problem?

Few individuals from every walk of life like to admit they are having trouble with alcohol. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness. “Not me,” they say. “That is not what’s the matter with me.” It is their job that is the problem, their family life or their health. There is always a scapegoat.

For most people, to admit that they are alcoholic is a deadly term, conjuring up images of weak willed, vagrant type people or any of a variety of types they are not proud to be. Their picture of the alcoholic is so ugly, so different from how they see themselves, that they have a good excuse to go on drinking.

Every member of Alcoholics Anonymous understands this type of thinking. Why? Because almost every member once entertained the same idea. They have learnt that denial is a symptom of the disease of alcoholism. It is described as a disease by the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association.

Few individuals with a drinking problem, however, care whether they have a disease or not, they just don’t see how they can give up alcohol which they feel has sustained them for so long. Giving up alcohol, they believe, is like giving up something they cherish very much. This too is part of the problem.

People from a wide variety of backgrounds in AA share how they came to groups with their common problem and how fruitful their lives have become since they became members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The experiences shared illustrate that alcoholism comes in many different forms and in a variety of disguises. There is no such thing as being too young to be an alcoholic, or too old, or too different, or too special.

It is important to bear in mind that alcoholism is not determined by where you drink, when you started to drinking, how long you have been drinking, with whom you drink, what or even how much.

It is what alcohol did to you that counts. If it has affected your relationships with your family, friends, employers; if it has affected your health; if it determines or affects your non-drinking moods on your state of mind; if you are in any way pre-occupied with alcohol then the possibility exists that you have a problem.

The illness called alcoholism can strike a person of any rank, any age, any race, any social or educational background. The blackouts and the shakes, delirium tremens, loneliness and fears are the same. The shared experiences of active alcoholism at AA meetings make up a bond among all members of Alcoholics Anonymous. “I know what you are going through,” everyone of them can say to a newcomer. “I have been there, I remember what it felt like.”

Most AA members are very competent, intelligent and attractive people. They are not bums or losers.

Their only problem is that they have lost the ability to control their drinking. They have learnt to change their lives. They are not merely abstaining from alcohol and staying dry. Through the AA programme of recovery summed up in the Twelve Steps they are learning a new and satisfying way of life and growing as human beings.

Alcoholism is a treatable illness, an illness that Alcoholics Anonymous can treat. One suffering from it can never return to social drinking. The allergy is present for a life time, but with AA there is no fear about it.

One does not have to hide from alcohol or avoid normal drinkers. One need only to be on guard against the first drink always, as long as life lasts. AA’s say cheerfully. “Don’t take the first drink, and you will never take another” the saying goes “One too many, but 20 is not enough.” This is possible one day at a time.

AA’s keep close to the presence of God and through this closeness the many problems that once tore down every department of their lives are finally solved and rebuilding goes on almost effortlessly.

Trinidad and Tobago Newsday