One of the hardest things people have to face and understand is that there is no “cure” for alcoholism. Friends and relatives of an alcoholic feel that now they are sober and not drinking that they need to get on with life and stop going to meetings and talking with other alcoholics like themselves. They have no idea of what this is, and it is a disease. A disease with no cure. None.
I know from my own past what people think. They hear about what alcoholics are trying to do on a daily basis and don’t understand it. Especially the spiritual side. They have no idea what has got them trying to pray and meditate. Some I know have even read the BB and other literature and think it’s something made up. Not real at all.
I have heard remarks made, which kind of don’t take the idea that a Higher Power, the concept of a God, is a reality, which they need. Even when an alcoholic ends up going back out and drinking again, they think it is that they are wrapped up in their thinking about alcohol. They believe it is a constant desire, or choice, not a disease they had been born with. Even a habit.
I’ve heard more alcoholics tell me that they have had the same kind of non-acceptance from family and friends. A total kind of misunderstanding. And yet, over time in this program, I have been able to talk to physicians, who understand this disease and they are able to explain how people are born into alcoholic families with this disease within them. As they grow up, someplace along the line the disease takes over their lives, often killing them.
I know from my own experience how I was totally owned by alcohol. Can never forget it. And I knew nothing about alcoholism. I knew nothing about the program, back then. It was not well known. I knew nothing about alcoholism. All I knew was that no matter what I tried I could not stop drinking. I was suffering despair and was going to kill myself. I was on the way out of this bar down in Washington, next door to where I worked. I had decided to step outside in front a bus on Pennsylvania Ave. They went by at about 34 miles an hour.
Just before I got there, an alcoholic friend of mine, came up and helped stop me. He had just heard about the program of AA and the possibility of both of us going there and getting help we needed. That gave me hope and I went home and prayed and begged God to stop me from drinking and I would do anything I could to do His will. I fell asleep and woke up the next morning and for the first time in many years I had no thought or desire of a drink of alcohol. Amazing.
I still haven’t taken a drink and am grateful for my Higher Power and all the people I met in this program. I was given lessons and needed to learn to do things, which changed me. I am so grateful for what I was given by my Higher Power and all those people in here, who have helped me. And, I don’t think about trying to change non alcoholics minds. Only my own and those who ask for help.