There Is A Solution - Chapter 2 - Big Book - Alcoholics Anonymous - Read Along

There is A Solution, Chapter 2, from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Carl Jung.

There is A Solution, Chapter 2, from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Carl Jung.

If you or someone you care about is suffering from addiction, there is help available.
Alcoholics Anonymous has been successful in saving millions of lives and families.

Local meetings can be found online.

Reach out if you would like assistance.

Spiritual principles helping to live your best life without alcohol and drugs.
Recovery from unhealthy habits and creating solutions for a long happy and useful life.

We, of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill. Nearly all have recovered. They have solved the drink problem.
We are average Americans. All sections of this country and many of its occupations are represented, as well as many political, economic, social, and reli­gious backgrounds. We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is inde­scribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our in­ dividual ways. The feeling of having shared in a com­mon peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.
The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.
An illness of this sort—and we have come to believe
it an illness—involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes anni­ hilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer’s. It brings misun­ derstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents—anyone can increase the list.
We hope this volume will inform and comfort those who are, or who may be affected. There are many.
Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his situation without reserve. Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the doctor.
But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solu­ tion, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another al­ coholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.
That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing what­ ever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured—these are the condi­tions we have found most effective. After such an ap­ proach many take up their beds and walk again.
None of us makes a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs. All of us spend much of our spare time in the sort of effort which we are going to describe. A few are fortunate enough to be so situated that they can give nearly all their time to the work.
If we keep on the way we are going there is little doubt that much good will result, but the surface of the problem would hardly be scratched. Those of us who live in large cities are overcome by the reflection that close by hundreds are dropping into oblivion every day. Many could recover if they had the oppor­tunity we have enjoyed. How then shall we present that which has been so freely given us?
We have concluded to publish an anonymous vol­ume setting forth the problem as we see it. We shall bring to the task our combined experience and knowl­edge. This should suggest a useful program for any­ one concerned with a drinking problem.
We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women, desperately in need, will see these pages, and we believe that it is only by fully disclos­ing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, “Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing.”