Fallacious Reasoning
It’s Theme Day again and the topic is “Mental Health” as May is Mental Health month. Just in time too - I could use a mental health day :)
When it comes to alkies, wow, do we have a seemingly never-ending supply of “stuff” to talk about relating to mental health! If you visit The Big Book Index or The Big Book Concordance under “M” you’ll see what I mean. Take a look at “Mental” and “Mind.” I’d waste a lot of space here re-printing the number of pages to be read. So I’ll narrow my focus (I hear ya’…)
Something Happens!
“We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.”
Centers In His Mind!
“These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.”
No Excuses Really Make Sense!
“If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic’s drinking bout creates.”
Fallacious Reasoning…
“They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can’t feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritable and refuse to talk.”
No Idea Why
“Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took the first drink than you have.”
“Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot.”
The Fact
“The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.”
Tags: alcohol-abuse, alcoholics-anonymous, alcoholism, twelve-steps
3 opinions for Fallacious Reasoning
Noor Azman Bin Othman
May 10, 2007 at 10:43 am
I even thought I can control using and act like a normal human-being. Later it became so unmanageable, I made a mess out of me!
emotionalsobriety
May 10, 2007 at 12:37 pm
We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago…
That could apply in about three areas of my life. Thanks for these quotes from our lit!
Alzheimer’s Notes » Alzheimer’s Notes Hosts Science & Health Theme Day
May 10, 2007 at 4:36 pm
[...] blogging at A Dozen Steps, discusses Fallacious Reasoning and says, I guess you could say that an alkie’s reasoning for drinking isn’t exactly [...]
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