Young People May Be Encouraged

Young people may be encouraged by this man’s experience to think that they can stop, as he did, on their own will power. We doubt if many of them can do it, because none will really want to stop, and hardly one of them, because of the peculiar mental twist already acquired, will find he can win out. Several of our crowd, men of thirty or less, had been drinking only a few years, but they found themselves as helpless as those who had been drinking twenty years. Big Book, p33

Willpower didn't stop me from drinking.  I would eventually find my way back to a bottle of some kind.  I tried the willpower way and I remained abstinent for periods of time before coming to AA.  I thought it was possible to recover.  I thought it was possible without a psychic change.  I also thought it was possible to recover because I knew myself so well.  I knew my triggers and how to avoid them.  My character had not changed and I rested on my own knowledge and laurels.  For me, this was a recipe for disaster.  Eventually, I took another drink.  And, once I took another drink, it didn't end.  I could not stop at one or two without rationalizing why I needed another drink, and then another.  They spiral downward continued.  It wasn't until I found this program and a Power Greater Than Myself that I have been able to refrain from drinking and cope with life simultaneously.  Without the tools Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me, I would surely drink again, because to face life was harder than to just die.

Thank You Higher Power.  Thank You for showing me a new reality without a drink.  Thank You for taking my helplessness and using it to mold me to Your Will.  Thank You