November 7

November 7 – AM          Page 38-39, More About Alcoholism, Chapter 7

Some of you are thinking:  “Yes, what you tell us is true, but it doesn’t fully apply.  We admit we have some of these symptoms, but we have not gone to the extremes you fellows did, nor are we likely to, for we understand ourselves so well after what you have told us that such things cannot happen again.  We have not lost everything in life through drinking and we certainly do not intend to.  Thanks for the information.”
That may be true of certain nonalcoholic people who, though drinking foolishly and heavily at the present time, are able to stop or moderate, because their brains and bodies have not been damaged as ours were.  But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.  This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience.

November 7 – PM          Page 132, The Family Afterward, Chapter 9

So we think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness.  Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past.  But why shouldn’t we laugh?  We have recovered, and have been given the power to help others.