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Alcoholics Anonymous
Drunkenness
is on the decline in this country. But a tragic few still
abuse the harmless pleasures of moderate drinking. For the
first time,
ILLUSTRATED investigates an experiment to help chronic inebriates
by
WILLI FRISCHAUER
For
a few days I have lived in a world of trembling hands, twitching
faces and stumbling feet, among a group of self-centered,
talkative yet hesitant people, whose moral and physical
powers of resistance had reached rock bottom. I have spent
my time with men and women superficially normal but actually
in the grip of a malignant, soul-and-body-destroying disease.
All my companions were chronic alcoholics. I met them at
“Hangover House,” a clinic in a south coast
holiday resort.
By meeting them I am able to lift one corner of the veil
of secrecy which has covered the mysterious organization
Alcoholics Anonymous, with its hundred thousand members
in the United States and many branches in Britain. For the
first time in the history of the organization, created to
help inebriates rid themselves of the craving for harmful
drink, a member is prepared to shed his anonymity. It was
his house and his work which enabled me to investigate the
scourge of alcoholism in this country.
Do not think that they are the least worried by the ordinary
man who occasionally over-celebrates in the local. They
are concerned with the men and women whose drinking is not
only destructive of themselves but an embarrassment to those
in what is popularly known as “the trade.” Every
licensee in the country will confirm that it is the habitual
alcoholic who gives the business a bad name and leads to
misguided agitation for Prohibition. It is an obvious irony
that America during its Prohibition days saw the birth of
the bootleg liquor rackets and an all-time high in crime
and drunkenness.
Until a few weeks ago, Alcoholics Anonymous was only a cypher,
an address – “BM/AAL, London, W.C.I.”
Few people knew anything about the organization. Even “interested
parties” had difficulty in tracing it. Then, in quick
succession, members intervened in police court cases at
Worthing and Hasting on behalf of people charged with being
drunk and disorderly. Without revealing their names, they
told the magistrates that, in their opinion, the accused
could be cured.
The anonymous witness at Hastings Police Court was a man
who had risen to a high position among his fellow-citizens,
but had been on the brink of disaster through his addiction
to alcohol. He succeeded in re-establishing himself as a
useful member of society. Like all members of Alcoholics
Anonymous, he frankly describes himself as an ex-alcoholic.
He now reveals his identity as Mr. E.C.V. Symonds. “Less
than a year ago,” he says,”I was a three-bottle
a day man, drinking pernod, vodka, calvados – anything
to get strong drink.”
Mr. Symonds conquered his craving, joined Alcoholics Anonymous,
and does not now touch alcohol. Like all members, he is
determined to help others overcome their handicap. An expert
in “natural therapy” and “hypnotism, “Vernon”
(members of Alcoholics Anonymous are only known by their
Christian names) has gone further than the fellowship in
his determination to combat alcoholism and to help individual
drunkards.
While Alcoholics Anonymous concentrates on a spiritual cure,
Vernon adds very practical measures which, strictly speaking,
are outside the province of the organization. The basis
for his curative efforts are the “twelve steps”
which can be described as the constitution of Alcoholics
Anonymous. First of these is “honest self-appraisal”:
We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol –
that our lives had become unmanageable.
The next points consist of statements of belief in a greater
power which can restore alcoholics to sanity: a “humble
request to God” to remove shortcomings; a decision
to make amends to all persons wronged.
The monthly journal: The A.A. Grapevine, published in the
United States, puts it like this: “Alcoholics Anonymous
is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience,
strength and hope with each other that they may solve their
common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is an honest desire
to stop drinking. A.A. has no dues or fees. It is not allied
with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution;
does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses
nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober
and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.”
That is the catechism of the “alkies” –
as alcoholics call themselves in America. They hold meetings
once or twice a week, discuss their experiences, exchange
ideas, strengthen each other’s beliefs and offer moral
support to fellow-members. It has been like this since the
movement began in Ohio in 1935, when a stockbroker and a
doctor, both alcoholics, resolve to cure each other. Within
a year, there were forty members. Today there are more than
100,000 in the United States. After the war, British groups
began to function, chiefly in London, Manchester, Bolton
and along the south coast.
At first it was chiefly hurried notes scribbled in a police
cell by a drunken man, or calls from patients in mental
homes which brought members of A.A. to the side of a new
aspirant for membership. Now alcoholics Anonymous is open
to a wider circle. Their telephone number is appearing in
the new directory this month. Ring Bishopsgate 9657, and
your call will be answered by Alcoholics Anonymous.
Medical authorities, in fact, are not quite agreed on what
constitutes alcoholism. But my inquiries have produced a
startling common denominator. All the self-confessed alcoholics
I met hate alcohol in their sober moments. They know that
it is the enemy, and that they are powerless once they begin
to drink.
“For
months I keep off it,” said a successful doctor when
I met him at the clinic. “Then by accident, or because
of some upset, I have a couple of drinks. At once I get
a craving for more and my capacity is great. When ‘time’
is called at a pub I move on in search of more liquor. Why,
when ever the night clubs close I make my way to Covent
Garden, where the pubs for the market people open early
in the morning.”
This man’s latest debauch lasted a full fortnight
until he was eventually picked up by Vernon, who took him
to his clinic. Covered in mud, the doctor had literally
dragged himself through a dozen gutters. His experience
is typical. A well-known woman author and alcoholic told
me that she disliked the taste of liquor but that she drank
two bottles a day until her collapse. And an accountant
who in his normal moments looks “as sober as a judge,”
confessed that after a domestic conflict he drank eau-de-Cologne
and switched to lighter fuel before ending up with methylated
spirits.
It is with such situations that Alcoholics Anonymous must
cope. They insist that most doctors, clergymen, psychologists
and probation officers who are called in to help an alcoholic,
have the disadvantage of not really understanding his mind”
“Only a habitual drunkard can understand his fellow-sufferer,”
is the view of A.A. The secretary of the British branches,
who calls himself “Dick,” is satisfied with
the progress and success of the fellowship. “We now
number around 500 members,” he told me, “and
meet regularly to discuss our problems. Yes, I was an alcoholic
myself.”
The small membership of Alcoholics Anonymous in Britain
is a testimony to the sobriety of the people. Charges have
been steadily declining for many decades.
A well-known publican said that drunkenness is today the
least of his trade’s worries. Only very occasionally
does he have to deal with customers who have overstepped
the mark, and long experience in observation across the
bar enables him to discover a potential trouble-maker long
before the man himself realizes that he is getting “under
the influence.”
Practically every one of these customers is outside the
demoralization, pernicious real of real alcoholism. For
the true alcoholic, many experts claim, there is no cure
– except rigid teetotalism. Doctors in this country
are now experimenting with a new drug, antabuse, and are
reporting a fair average of success. This drug turns people
against the taste of alcohol, but it is too early yet to
say whether it can achieve a permanent cure. Such results,
according to Alcoholics Anonymous, can only be obtained
by an act of faith, as their fellowship suggests.
My investigations show that the most difficult aspect of
such a spiritual cure is the “first step.” It
is extremely difficult foe an alcoholic who has reached
a low moral and physical standard after prolonged indulgence
to “snap out of it.” Even if his bout lands
him in jail his cravings persists because he faces another
personal crisis from which the only escape seems to be renewed
alcoholic insensibility. As soon as the victim of alcohol
is released he again begins to “drown his sorrows”
to sink his shame and dishonour.
That is where a combination of spiritual approach and physical
treatment comes in. “I have been through it all myself,”
Vernon explained, when I visited his clinic, where he treats
no more than four patients at a time. “Therefore I
am never amazed, never surprised by alcoholics; I am not
unconcerned with their worries but I do not pander to their
tendencies of egocentricity. Neither, frankly, will I stand
any nonsense from the recalcitrant.”
His view is that all appearances of an “institution”
should be avoided. His own home is a pleasant country house
standing in its own grounds. Here patients, distinguished,
dignified-looking people, go for walks, spend their time
gardening, exercise their bodies, take steam baths and electrical
treatment, eat mostly fruit and vegetables, and enjoy the
companionship of fellow-sufferers. In no circumstances are
drugs administered. A drop of alcohol to calm down a “bad
case” is the limit.
Emphasis is still laid on re-education, and hypnosis plays
its part. But it is essential to develop in the alcoholics,
a strong feeling for his fellow-alcoholic, and in this respect
Vernon recalls some spectacular successes. “On one
occasion,” he told me, ”A patient was in bed
anxiously awaiting the visit of a business partner. The
latter, alas, arrived very drunk. There being no other bed
free, the patient got up to vacate his own to the greater
sufferer.”
Such reaction seems to show that the principles of Alcoholics
Anonymous are sound. Alcoholism, it is said, is a mental
defect which rigid application of all available will power
is best able to counteract. One an alcoholic can summon
up enough moral courage to keep away from that first drink
he will steer clear of the dark and dangerous passage which
leads him through the mists of alcohol fumes down the road
to demoralization- and mental and physical destruction.
In this country, as in the United States, the pioneering
work of Alcoholics Anonymous is watched with the closest
interest by religious bodies, doctors, psychologists, social
workers – and the police.
(Source:
Illustrated, April 8, 1950)
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