April 4

April 4 – AM          Page 23-24, There Is A Solution, Chapter 2

Once in a while he may tell the truth.  And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have.  Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time.  But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it.  Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot.  There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game.  But they often suspect they are down for the count.
How true this is, few realize.  In a vague way their families and friends sense that these drinkers are abnormal, but everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will.
The tragic truth is that if the man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive.  He has lost control.  At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail.  This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.

April 4 – PM          Page xxviii, The Doctor’s Opinion

If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this movement.  We feel, after many years of experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them.