Smash the Notion that we can Drink Successfully

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people has to be smashed.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost their ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. We are convinced that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period of time we get worse, never better. We are like men who have lost their legs: they never grow new ones.