The following excerpts are highlights taken from the first of five talks given by Allen McG at the Brentwood Beginners Meeting in Los Angeles, July 4, l968 (Allen passed on November 15, 1972).
Why do we insist that there be a “point” to sobriety? In our culture, sobriety is seen as a virtue by drinkers and non-drinkers alike. Therefore, if we abstain from alcohol: a) we are virtuous, and, b) we should get a reward for it.
By the time we get to A.A., the idea of being virtuous about not drinking has grown to such proportions in our minds that we want a pretty big reward for not drinking. But we have a disease. When we are not sober we are sick. When I got here, the term “alcoholic” had a nice scientific sound to it. It sounded upper class and antiseptic.
There are two categories of unspoken attitudes when a person arrives at A.A. The first is, I will stay sober if I get back……?” You can fill in your own blank. It might be: getting back my husband, my wife, my job, the car, the kids, my health, my self respect, my figure, and on and on and on. This attitude has a salutary effect in staying away from the first drink for awhile. Then comes the day when one of two things happens: you realize that you haven’t gotten back the things you stayed sober for or now that you have gotten back the things you stayed sober for, you no longer want them. So what course do you take from this point. You ask, “What is the point of sobriety?” There is no point to sobriety if sobriety is a means to an end and no end has been gotten. So you dispense with sobriety.
The other unspoken attitude comes from a smaller group that is growing because more of our members are younger and younger. These people are too young to have lost much. They say, “I will stay sober if I get . .” Then their list follows and fills in the blank. “I will stay sober if I get a husband, a wife, a job, a Cadillac, the contract, and on and on and on.” They stay sober until one day they take inventory and see that they have not gotten what they want or they have gotten it but it no longer has any value to them. So they in turn say,” What is the point of sobriety?” Since it has no value to them, they dispense with it.
They were virtuous by not drinking but they didn’t get their reward! This is the most dangerous thinking an alcoholic can do. Newcomers only need to remember to stay away from the first drink! You don’t have to be virtuous. You can kick your wife or husband, beat the kids, yell at the dog, tell your boss you are resigning. You can screw up your life however you want to! But don’t take the first drink!
Suppose that instead of alcoholism, you had diabetes. The two are not that far apart. Your doctor would tell you that you would lead a normal life if you took your insulin. Suppose that you came back to your doctor and told him that you were not going to take your insulin because “your wife doesn’t treat you any better than she used to, my boss still gives me trouble, my kids are driving me crazy, the taxes are too high, etc. Nothing has changed so why should I take the insulin? Your doctor would say that you should take the insulin because that way you live! Like it or not, it is the same way for an alcoholic. By staying away from the first drink, we stay alive.
If you go back to drinking, you might not just go back and die with the first drink. You die by inches. You lose everything that makes life worth living. Every human being at one point in life, must take a stand somewhere. It is part of growing up.
If the alcoholic takes a stand by putting his or her feet down in a clear cut way by saying, “Here, I will stand. I will not have the first drink no matter what! I expect no reward for it. I don’t care if life treats me good or bad, whether I keep my job or lose my job, whether people hate me or love me, whether I flip my wig and go insane and the boys in little white jackets come and get me, I will at least know where I am going and who is taking me.”
I put my feet down and I say,” I may die here, I may collapse here, I may go crazy here, I may flip my wig here, but from this spot I will not retreat. I will not take the first drink.”
You can do it. I have done it and thousands of others have done it. And until you do it, you will not move forward. You keep moving backwards.
If you have now come to the conclusion that sobriety for an alcoholic is an end in itself, that not drinking has nothing to do with virtue if you are an alcoholic, that it has nothing to do with a reward, that it has nothing to do with fringe benefits and dividends, then you see that the answer to the question, “What is the point of sobriety,” is life itself.
It is as simple and fundamental and all encompassing as that. The point of sobriety is to stay alive!
My reaction as a newcomer to being told that “sobriety is my number one problem” was to want to spend two hours telling the person who said that to me about all of the living problems I bad.
But they were telling me the truth because I am an alcoholic.
It’s true that alcoholism is the symptom of deeper troubles and we are going to get into that in future talks. But there is no point in getting into it until we have answered the first question, ‘What is the point of sobriety?”
The point of sobriety is life for the alcoholic!
If sobriety itself is not enough reason for us to stay sober, we run the danger of asking ourselves the fatal question,”What the hell is the point of sobriety?”
SELECTED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. Question; Why do we feel ill at ease at first in sobriety?
Answer: We always used to feel ill at ease sober. That’s why we drank. We didn’t know how to cope with reality without some kind of aid. We didn’t know how to stand there as ourselves without a glass in our hand that would make us witty, charming, intelligent, or brave, or sexy, or whatever we wanted to be on that particular night, or day, or afternoon. Naturally, when this artificial aid is removed, we will feel uncomfortable until we learn to accept our selves and feel self esteem. I was so uncomfortable that I drank when I could no longer stay sober. Then I would stay sober as long as I could. I was a periodic. But in the last two years of my drinking, I drank pretty steadily. The periods became commas, and the commas became comas. I used to say that I will get sober if I get canonized. But I wanted it while I was alive and could enjoy it. I would have preferred it by acclamation. When it didn’t happen, I said to myself, “Why should I go to A.A. meetings?’ l said the fatal words, “What the hell is the point of sobriety !” Then I drank again.
2. Question: I am 16 days sober and feel deep resentments. What can I do?
Answer: Go ahead and have resentments! Just stay away from the first drink. If you want to hate a few people go ahead and hate them. You do not have to be virtuous in order to be sober. If you say to yourself, I’ve got to get rid of these resentments or I will get drunk, you will get drunk. Just stay away from the first drink. Later we learn to deal with resentments so that we can stay comfortable.
3. Question: Material things no longer satisfy me. When will inner things begin to satisfy me?
Answer: The door must be opened before you can walk through it. You have opened the door with your discovery. Now you will go through that door. I discovered that the questions in life that bug me the most are always in the process of being answered. Otherwise they would not bug me. After awhile I find out that I have been living with the answer. The answer has been coming out of the turmoil. That is why the questions have been bugging me.
INVENTORY EXAMPLE
(Try to condense to three sentences.)
a) The Story: I have been demanding rewards in life to be happy.
b) What did I do wrong? I have been complicating my relationship with God and others by demanding more than sobriety.
c) What should I do instead? Simplify my life by being grateful for being alive because of my sobriety and surrendering my other demands in life.
How would you answer the following question: “Is a spiritual experience necessary in order to maintain sobriety?”
Related Links
- What does it mean to “take an inventory” in a program of recovery?
- Allen McG. speaking at Brentwood Beginners Workshop
- Are you new to AA?
- A Newcomer Asks
- Is A.A. for Me?
- Do You Think You’re Different?
- Agnostic and Atheist Members in A.A.
- The Big Book (aka Alcoholics Anonymous)
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions