'We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.'
'...their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinksdrinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.'
That part? For me, it means if I have one drink there's a very high probability I won't stop with one. I drink until I'm drunk.
Rrib pretty much explained it. I believe the most important thing to get out of it is that I have an allergy to alcohol and a compulsion to drink it....this results in the trainwrech we all experience as alcoholism.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I suppose the Doctor's Opinion is a medical assessment of the causes, effects and symptoms of alcoholism, as manifested in a particular type of alcoholic. If read in conjunction with chapter 2, There is a Solution, you will have before you a range of typical characterisitics of the chronic alcoholic and probably enough information to make your own diagnosis. If your conclusion is that you are an alcoholic of our type and you can accept that you are powerless over alcohol and your life has become unmanageable, without any reservation that one day you might be able to drink like other people, then you will have taken the first step in recovery.
I guess, for the first step, a certain amount of knowledge is required to reach an acceptance of the facts, but my experience of the rest of the program is that action is far more important/beneficial than knowledge. In fact real knowledge of a step and its effects can only be acquired after taking the step, not in advance. We take the steps to get sober not the other way around. Best wishes for your journey, trust God, Clean house, help others.
My feeling is that the doctor's opinion helped immesurably with doing away with the notion that alcoholism is a lack of exerting moral willpower. Thereafter chronic cases which would typically be considered hopeless or incapable of anything might find an answer in AA and the spiritual experience. This is what Bill and Doc Silkworth noted.
Like others have said We alcoholics have an obsession of the mind coupled with an allergy of the body and it truly sucks to crave the very thing you are allergic to. If a person is allergic to some food and have a reaction they don't eat that food again but we have a reaction to alcohol our body doesn't want anymore but our mind tells us it's ok it will work this time if we drink again. Dr. Silkworth also wrote an article on slips where he states that slips are not just an alcoholic thing it's a human thing. Just like any other person with a disease who quit taking medicine or doing what they need to do to keep it in check they will relapse and be sick again. If we quit working the steps, going to meetings and talking to our higher power we will surely be sick again.
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Tell me and I'll forget. Teach me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll learn.
My feeling is that the doctor's opinion helped immesurably with doing away with the notion that alcoholism is a lack of exerting moral willpower. Thereafter chronic cases which would typically be considered hopeless or incapable of anything might find an answer in AA and the spiritual experience. This is what Bill and Doc Silkworth noted.
That is what I remember.
I concur...
Bob K wrote:
Like others have said We alcoholics have an obsession of the mind coupled with an allergy of the body and it truly sucks to crave the very thing you are allergic to. If a person is allergic to some food and have a reaction they don't eat that food again but we have a reaction to alcohol our body doesn't want anymore but our mind tells us it's ok it will work this time if we drink again. Dr. Silkworth also wrote an article on slips where he states that slips are not just an alcoholic thing it's a human thing. Just like any other person with a disease who quit taking medicine or doing what they need to do to keep it in check they will relapse and be sick again. If we quit working the steps, going to meetings and talking to our higher power we will surely be sick again.
I concur again...We hope this helps.
-- Edited by Mr_David on Wednesday 5th of October 2011 03:40:45 AM
