December 2

December 2 – AM          Page 100, Working With Others, Chapter 7

When working with a man and his family, you should take care not to participate in their quarrels.  You may spoil your chance of being helpful if you do.  But urge upon a man’s family that he has been a very sick person and should be treated accordingly.  You should warn against arousing resentment or jealousy.  You should point out that his defects of character are not going to disappear over night.  Show them that he has entered upon a period of growth.  Ask them to remember, when they are impatient, the blessed fact of his sobriety.
If you have been successful in solving your own domestic problems, tell the newcomer’s family how that was accomplished.  In this way you can set them on the right track without becoming critical of them.  The story of how you and your wife settled your difficulties is worth any amount of criticism.

December 2 – PM          Page xxx-xxxi, The Doctor’s Opinion

This immediately precipitates us into a seething caldron of debate.  Much has been written pro and con, but among physicians, the general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed.
What is the solution?  Perhaps I can best answer this by relating one of my experiences.
About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism.  He had but partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage and seemed to be a case of pathological mental deterioration.  He had lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink.  He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope.  Following the elimination of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent brain injury.  He accepted the plan outlined in this book.  One year later he called to see me, and I experienced a very strange sensation.  I knew the man by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended.  From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment.  I talked with him for some time, but was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before.  To me he was a stranger, and so he left me.  A long time has passed with no return to alcohol.