Experince With Alcoholism Changes Perspectives

by Danny Schwarzhoff - RLRA*

I've observed that those who fit AA's description of the alcoholic, and subsequently exploit AAs Step Program, regularly affirm FULL REVCOVERY without so much as even the slightest temptation to ever drink. EVER!

They appear AA meeting-independent, not sponsor or Fellowship addicted, apparently achieving tangible SOBRIETY, they also call – "freedom from alcohol" - through AAs 12 steps. Not the 12 steps of treatment centers, rehabs, or other fellowships; but the 12 Steps of AA, prescribed in 164 pages of the textbook, Alcoholics Anonymous.

Conversely, there are those who DON'T fit AAs description (Not alcoholics of AAs "type") yet through alcohol abuse have been beat up pretty badly by it. These recognize they are NOT recovered from their drunken behavioral problems, consequently they refer tothemselves as "still recovering".

These promote abstinence, NOT through AAs Program, instead through AA's Fellowship, dutiful meeting attendance, sloganizing, making coffee and other methods NOT prescribed in AAs Program as the treatment for alcoholism.

In clinging to AAs Fellowship by frequent meeting attendance, they do appear quite "meeting dependent" as opposed to the "recovered alcoholic's" reliance upon "freedom from alcohol." There is an almost "cultish" quality to these non-alcoholic AA's for whom this alternate solution is feasible. This class of AA doesn't sound particularly free to me. Do they to you?

When most of us think of an allergy, we think of a malady, developing when the body's immune system becomes misdirected, attacking harmless food proteins. Within this narrow definition, an allergic reaction seems solely an immune system response to substances perceived by the body as a harmful allergen.

What many folks overlook is that THIS definition is NOT the SOLE definition of allergy and thus his handicapped understanding about allergies runs risk of dismissing OTHER potentially lethal substances as being harmless, when in fact they are deadly; substances like alcohol.

To Wit - Merriam-Webster's definition of allergy:

1) "altered bodily reactivity (as hypersensitivity) to an antigen in response to a first exposure."

This is a definition my opponent would have us embrace, looking no further. However if we go on reading Merriam-Webster:

2) exaggerated or pathological reaction (as by sneezing, respiratory embarrassment, itching, or skin rashes) to substances, situations, or physical states that are without comparable effect on the average individual.

We can't very well consider the ENTIRE definition if we seek to concoct a fallacy, now can we?

When I, myself alcohol allergic, ingest so much as even a miniscule amount of alcohol, I experience an exaggerated or pathological reaction to the alcohol that is without comparable effect on the average individual. This is definition 2.

My exaggerated, pathological reaction manifests as an experience of craving. Craving isn't a reaction experienced by the average individual when THEY ingest alcohol and happens ONLY to allergic people such as myself. Estimates I've encountered, assert this allergy is attributable to less than 15% of the world population.

For this reason, there's an Alcoholic Allergy Foundation, a non-profit organization, with which I am involved, endeavoring to raise public awareness of alcoholic allergy, since death due to ALL allergies combined overwhelmingly due to alcohol and comprise the largest percentage of humanity affected.

I was once attending a holiday dinner with family. My father-in-law offered "a little wine" around the table, as he filled each glass with about 1 inch of sweet red.

When first I sipped, the glass was empty.

"May I have some more please". He said, "Sorry, there's no more" I thought, " Good, I should only have little anyway."

Within minutes I was craving alcohol so intensley, I knew I just had to leave. When my wife decided we might depart early, and I was stuck, through panicked dessert, finally departing for home, trapped like a sick rat.

I managed to get home with her, still white knuckling the crave, but two hours had past since that inch of sweet red, and since its grasp was loosening ever so slightly, I managed to crawl into bed, hung-over, exhausted and traumatized; as though I'd drunk an entire bottle. I fell asleep.

Apparently that minuscule amount of alcohol, which NEVER would I have consumed had I preconceived that my body would respond this way, contained just as much alcohol necessary to set in motion a bodily reaction (hypersensitivity) of a craving sensation (abnormal reaction) that was barely endured.

What may have been still a "Theory" of alcoholic allergy back in Silkworth's day, for me in my real life experience is today a reality. Any real alcoholic, will understand.

Others...how could they? They haven't experienced it themselves.

Peace,

Danny S

* Real Live Recovered Alcoholic