December 9

December 9 – AM         Page 119-120, To Wives, Chapter 8

It is probably true that you and your husband have been living too much alone, for drinking many times isolates the wife of an alcoholic.  Therefore, you probably need fresh interests and a great cause to live for as much as your husband.  If you cooperate, rather than complain, you will find that his excess enthusiasm will tone down.  Both of you will awaken to a new sense of responsibility for others.  You, as well as your husband, ought to think of what you can put into life instead of how much you can take out.  Inevitably your lives will be fuller for doing so.  You will lose the old life to find one much better.

December 9 – PM            Page 100-101, Working With Others, Chapter 7

Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do.  People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn’t think or be reminded about alcohol at all.  Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so.

We meet these conditions everyday.  An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status.  His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything!  Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.