Corey opens with something he caught himself saying in a text right before he hit record. He had written that he had to do this study, and thought about it afterward, because the truth is he gets to. Then he moves into the mental half of the illness, having spent last week on the physical.
The chapter’s claims get worked slowly. The main problem centers in the mind rather than the body. The hundred alibis an alcoholic offers are for everyone else’s benefit, which Corey says plainly about himself: he never needed a reason to drink, he needed one to give you. He remembers being seventeen with a fake ID and a friend calling on a Tuesday to go watch a game, and neither of them caring who was playing. He also remembers sitting in a hotel with a bar downstairs while out on bond, with every reason in the world to stay upstairs and no thought at all about why he went down.
From there the study works through losing the power of choice, the failure to bring last month’s humiliation to mind with enough force to stop anything, and what that means for the advice to play the tape through. Corey’s read is that being able to play it through would mean he was never powerless to begin with. The businessman’s story follows, the one who went to Europe and came back with a profound knowledge of his own mind and was drunk again shortly after, and the doctor who told him the truth when he asked for it.
It ends on the exception, on the man who still lives and is free and can go anywhere other free men go, and on the way Corey measures his own life now, which is by how free he can get.
A study offered in the spirit of one alcoholic sharing experience, strength, and hope with another.
Read along at home. Reach out any time at wave@dailyripples.com.
Big Book study | There Is a Solution | the mental obsession | power of choice in drink | vital spiritual experience | beyond human aid | William James | recovery literature | experience strength and hope | addiction recovery
Disclaimer: This Wave Book Study is an independent recovery study offered free of charge as a teaching aid. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (A.A.W.S.). Passages read and discussed are drawn from the book Alcoholics Anonymous (“The Big Book”), © A.A.W.S., Inc., and are used here for educational and discussion purposes with attribution. This study is not a substitute for the Big Book itself. We’d encourage you to get your own copy and read it. A.A.W.S. has not reviewed or approved this content, and the views expressed are those of the host alone.