More About Alcoholism

More About Alcoholism

1. In Chapter 2, There Is A Solution, what was the detailed solution to alcoholism?
2. Read Chapter 3, More About Alcoholism.
3. Could you consistently control and enjoy your drinking?
4. Have you been obsessed about trying to prove yourself not alcoholic or a person who simply needed to do a better job of drink management?
5. Define the word “concede”.
   1. Have you “conceded” to your innermost self that you are alcoholic?
6. What does the phrase “ability to control our drinking” mean?
   1. What specifically does that look like?
7. What is a “real” alcoholic?
8. Have you tried any of the methods to control your drinking on the page 31 list?
   1. What other methods, if any, did you try?
9. Why would Bill and the first 100 members encourage you to try some controlled drinking?
10. Have you been able to control your drinking for long after a period of sobriety?
    1. What does this say about you and the malady of alcoholism?
11. What do you think of the story about the “man of thirty”?
12. Will a period of sobriety change the truth contained in the phrase, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”?
13. Does age or gender play a role in alcoholism?
14. What is the baffling feature of alcoholism?
15. Describe the crux of the problem, as stated in the Big Book.
    1. Put this into your own terms through your own experience.
16. What do you think these members told “Jim“, when the Big Book says, “We told him what we knew of alcoholism and the answer we had found.”?
17. What does this phrase mean, “He made a beginning.”?
    1. Have you ever made “a beginning” before?
    2. How many “beginnings” have you made?
    3. Did they work?  If so, why?  If not, why not?
18. What did “Jim” not do, after his “beginning”?
19. What is the Big Book’s definition of “insanity”?
20. Have you ever gone out deliberately to get drunk?
21. Does the “jaywalking” story relate to your personal experience with alcohol?  If so, in what way?
22. Are you thinking, “Yes, what you tell us is true, but it doesn’t fully apply. We admit…  Thanks for the information.”?
23. Why will “self-knowledge” not work?
24. What problem did “Fred” have that lead him back to the drink?
25. In the hospital two members of Alcoholics Anonymous came to see “Fred“.  What two things did they outline?
    1. How are they different?
    2. Describe each of the two things in your own words.
26. “Fred” makes the statement that “spiritual principles would solve all of my problems.”  Why do you think “Fred” believes that?
    1. Do you believe that?  Why or why not?
    2. What are “spiritual principles”?
    3. Do you think it’s “possible” that spiritual principles could solve “all” of your problems?
    4. Even if you do not believe or are skeptical that spiritual principles could solve all of your problems, are you willing to try?
27. In closing, a physician (Dr. Percy Poliak) make a statement that, in his opinion, two of these men were “100% hopeless apart from divine help” and “For most cases, there is virtually no other option.”  How do you fell about a medical doctor making that claim?
    1. How does this relate to your personal experience with your alcoholism?
28. Define the word, “effective”.
29. Where must our defense come from?
    1. Do you believe the last paragraph pertains to you?

**Big Book Study:  Chapter 4:  We Agnostics