December 27

December 27 – AM          Page 64-65, How It Works, Chapter 5

Resentment is the “number one” offender.  It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.  From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.  When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.  In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry.  We asked ourselves why we were angry.  In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened.  So we were sore.  We were “burned up.”

December 27 – PM          Page xxxi-xxxii, The Doctor’s Opinion

When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York.  The patient had made his own diagnosis, and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die.  He was rescued by a searching party, and, in desperate condition, brought to me.  Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the “will power” to resist the impulse to drink.
His alcoholic problem was so complex, and his depression so great, that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called “moral psychology,” and we doubted if even that would have any effect.
However, he did become “sold” on the ideas contained in this book.  He has not had a drink for a great many years.  I see him now and then and he is as fine a specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet.
I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through, and though perhaps he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.
William D. Silkworth, M.D.