But when I do not act within the knowledge that I cannot see, it is then I get hurt, or in trouble.”
“If you want to get well,” one A.A. woman said, “you just take your treatment and follow directions and go on living. It’s easy as long as you remember the new facts about your health. Who has time to feel ‘deprived’ or self-pitying when you find there are so many delights connected with living happily unafraid of your illness?”
To summarize: We remember we have an incurable, potentially fatal ailment called alcoholism. And instead of persisting in drinking, we prefer to figure out, and use, enjoyable ways of living without alcohol.
We need not be ashamed that we have a disease. It is no disgrace. No one knows exactly why some people become alcoholics while others don’t. It is not our fault. We did not want to become alcoholics. We did not try to get this illness.
We did not suffer alcoholism just because we enjoyed it, after all. We did not deliberately, maliciously set out to do the things we were later ashamed of. We did them against our better judgment and instinct because we were really sick, and didn’t even know it.
We’ve learned that no good comes of useless regret and worry about how we got this way. The first step toward feeling better, and getting over our sickness, is quite simply not drinking.
Try the idea on for size. Wouldn’t you rather recognize you have a health condition which can be successfully treated, than spend a lot of time miserably worrying about what’s wrong with you? We have found this is a better-looking, and better-feeling, picture of ourselves than the old gloomy selves we used to see. It is truer, too. We know. The proof of it is in the way we feel, act, and think—now.
Anyone who wants it is welcome to a “free trial period” of this new concept of self. Afterward, anyone who wants the old days again is perfectly free to start them all over. It is your right to take back your misery if you want it.
On the other hand, you can also keep the new picture of yourself, if you’d rather. It, too, is yours by right.
5 ‘Live and Let Live’
The old saying “Live and Let Live” seems so commonplace, it is easy to overlook its value. Of course, one reason it has been said over and over for years is that it has proved beneficial in so many ways.
We A.A.’s make some special uses of it to help us not drink. It particularly helps us cope with people who get on our nerves.
Reviewing once more a little of our drinking histories, many of us can see how very, very often our drinking problem appeared to be related somehow to other people. Experimenting with beer or wine in our teen-age years seemed natural, since so many others were doing it, and we wanted their approval. Then came weddings and bar mitzvahs and christenings and holidays and football games and cocktail parties and business lunches...and the list can go on and on. In all of these circumstances, we drank at least partly because everybody else was drinking and seemed to expect us to.
Those of us who began to drink alone, or to sneak a drink now and then, often did so to keep some other person or people from knowing how much, or how often, we drank. We rarely liked to hear anybody else talk about our drinking. If they did, we frequently told them “reasons” for our drinking, as if we wanted to ward off criticism or complaints.
Some of us found ourselves argumentative or even belligerent toward other people after drinking. Yet others of us felt we really got along better with people after a drink or two—whether it was a social evening, a tense sale or job interview, or even making love.
Our drinking caused many of us to choose our friends according to how much they drank. We even changed friends when we felt we had “outgrown” their drinking styles. We preferred “real drinkers” to people who just took one or two. And we tried to avoid teetotalers.
Many of us were guilty and angry about the way our family reacted to our drinking. Some of us lost jobs because a boss or a colleague at work objected to our drinking. We wished people would mind their own business and leave us alone!
Often, we felt angry and fearful even toward people who had not criticized us. Our guilt made us extra sensitive to those around us, and we nursed grudges. Sometimes, we changed bars, changed jobs, or moved to new neighborhoods just to get away from certain persons.
So a great number of people besides ourselves were in one way or another involved in our drinking, to some degree.
When we first stopped drinking, it was a great relief to find that the people we met in A.A.—recovered alcoholics—seemed to be quite different. They reacted to us, not with criticism and suspicion, but with understanding and concern.
However, it is perfectly natural that we still encounter some people who get on our nerves, both within A.A. and outside it. We may find that our non-A.A. friends, co-workers, or family members still treat us as if we were drinking. (It may take them a little while to believe that we have really stopped. After all, they may have seen us stop many times in the past, only to start again.)
To begin to put the concept of “Live and Let Live” into practice, we must face this fact: There are people in A.A., and everywhere else, who sometimes say things we disagree with, or do things we don’t like. Learning to live with differences is essential to our comfort. It is exactly in those cases that we have found it extremely helpful to say to ourselves, “Oh, well, ‘Live and Let Live.’”
In fact, in A.A. much emphasis is placed on learning how to tolerate other people’s behavior. However offensive or distasteful it may seem to us, it is certainly not worth drinking about. Our own recovery is too important. Alcoholism can and does kill, we recall.
We have learned it pays to make a very special effort to try to understand other people, especially anyone who rubs us the wrong way. For our recovery, it is more important to understand than to be understood. This is not very difficult if we bear in mind that the other A.A. members, too, are trying to understand, just as we are.
For that matter, we’ll meet some people in A.A. or elsewhere who won’t be exactly crazy about us, either. So all of us try to respect the rights of others to act as they choose (or must). We can then expect them to give us the same courtesy. In A.A., they generally do.
Usually, people who like each other—in a neighborhood, a company, a club, or A.A.—gravitate toward each other. When we spend time with people we like, we are less annoyed by those we don’t particularly care for.
As time goes on, we find we are not afraid simply to walk away from people who irritate us, instead of meekly letting them get under our skin, or instead of trying to straighten them out just so they will suit us better.
None of us can remember anyone’s forcing us to drink alcohol. No one ever tied us down and poured booze down our throats. Just as no one physically compelled us to drink, now we try to make sure no one will mentally “drive us to drink,” either.
It is very easy to use other people’s actions as an alibi for drinking. We used to be experts at it. But in sobriety, we have learned a new technique: We never let ourselves get so resentful toward someone else that we allow that person to control our lives—especially to the extent of causing us to drink. We have found we have no desire to let any other person run, or ruin, our lives.
An ancient sage said that none of us should criticize another until we have walked a mile in the other person’s boots. This wise advice can give us greater compassion for our fellow human beings. And putting it into practice makes us feel much better than being hung-over.
“Let Live”—yes. But some of us find just as much value in the first part of the slogan: “Live”!
When we have worked out ways to enjoy our own living fully, then we are content to let other people live any way they want. If our own lives are interesting and productive, we really have no impulse or desire to find fault with others or worry about the way they act.
Can you think right this minute of someone who really bothers you?
If you can, try something. Postpone