Alcoholism is recognised as a major health problem. In the United States, it is the third great killer, after heart disease and cancer, and it does not damage alcoholics alone. Others are hurt by its effects-in the home, on the job, on the highway. Alcoholism costs the community millions of dollars every year. So whether or not you ever become an alcoholic yourself, alcoholism still can have an impact on your life. We have learned a great deal about how to identify and arrest alcoholism. But so far no one has discovered a way to prevent it, because nobody knows exactly why some drinkers turn into alcoholics. Doctors and scientists in the field have not agreed on the cause (or causes) of alcoholism. For that reason, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) concentrates on helping those who are already alcoholics, so that they can stop drinking and learn how to live a normal, happy life without alcohol.
What is alcoholism?
As AA sees it, alcoholism is an illness. Alcoholics cannot control their drinking, because they are ill in their bodies and in their minds (or emotions), AA believes. If they do not stop drinking, their alcoholism almost always gets worse. Both the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association, chief organisations of doctors in those countries, also have said that alcoholism is an illness.
What are the symptoms?
Not all alcoholics have the same symptoms, but many-at different stages in the illness-show these signs:
They find that only alcohol can make them feel self-confident and at ease with other people; often want "just one more" at the end of a party; try to control their drinking by changing types of liquor; going on the wagon, or taking pledges; sneak drink; lie about their drinking; hide bottles; drink at work (or in school); drink alone; have blackouts (that is, cannot remember the next day what they said or did the night before); drink in the morning, to relieve severe hangovers, guilty feelings and fears.
What is AA?
Alcoholics Anonymous is a worldwide fellowship of men and women who help each other to stay sober.
They offer the same help to anyone who has a drinking problem and wants to do something about it.
Since they are all alcoholics themselves, they have a special understanding of each other. They know what the illness feels like-and they have learned how to recover from it in AA. AA members say that they are alcoholics today, even when they have not had a drink for many years. They do not say that they are "cured." Once people have lost their ability to control their drinking, they can never again be sure of drinking safely-or, in other words, they can never become "former alcoholics" or "ex alcoholics." But in AA, they can become sober alcoholics, or recovered alcoholics.