Now that I know I am dealing with a 2 part illness, in where my body sets off a craving and my mind sets off an obsession to do so, when it comes to drinking, if I take just one single drink, I can learn, how to treat that.  

Bill's Story showed me another man did it, and after doing so, decided to share his story with others so they could do it too.  The first paragraph in the Chapter "There is a Solution" our of Alcoholics Anonymous, uses the words "recovered" and "solved."  I personally feel that after treating my alcoholism with what AA suggests, I have recovered, and my drinking problem is solved.  In meetings I often hear, people use the word recovering, and I understand that if they are still in the process of learning the program, but in my life, being an alcoholic is no longer a problem, because there is a solution.  The chapter also uses the word "common solution" in where the solution is not exclusive to one or two types of people, it is for anybody and everybody who wants to learn what it is and apply it to their lives.  

One of my favorite parts of the chapter is when the author describes the happenings of consequences for the alcoholic with untreated alcoholism.  The author says the words "with it (alcoholism) goes the annihilation of all things worth while in life.  This includes, family, career, relationships, having children, giving back to the community, achieving great milestones, alcoholism for most, destroys any chance of any of those things, happening in where the outcome is well and healthy.  

The author also talks about how not only is the alcoholics life, a miserable mess most of the time, but those who are in touch with the alcoholic will experience misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgust, children's lives affected negatively when they didn't have to be, and so on.  

The first real important point the author makes in this chapter is the importance of talking to another alcoholic, particularly one who has recovered.  He uses the words "properly armed with facts about himself", and once the alcoholic, who is terrified on the inside at the honest reality that he doesn't know what to do and doesn't know why he is different and that difference is creating such a hell storm, can maybe start to understand and maybe start to learn and listen.  

I know I had to learn, but first listen, I had to listen to learn, and to this day, I am a very good listener, even to those who aren't teaching me anything.  Sometimes as a recovered person I have to listen to others to see what not to do or who not to be.  I can then pray for those people and go out of my way to help them become well as well, being recovered has really opened the door to a window of positivity I had never known suffering from untreated alcoholism. 

The author talks about the conditions to learn in that include "no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured, are the best conditions for effective results.  I've found that if you can make your life a little more stress free, or if you are in a situation where all you have to do is focus on recovery for a while, until life resumes, it is a blessing in disguise and if you listen with an honest desire to learn, you'll get information that will last a life time and that you can use no matter if your broke, lonely, being challenged, or any other obstacle of adversity you might encounter. 

There is an important point on Pg. 19, and it says that none of the pioneers made a sole vocation of this work (which is known as 12th step work.)  The author also says they don't think the work would become more effective even if they did.  I think this is important to understand, recovering to become recovered, can be something you do in your spare time, and you don't have to drop everything or put it first in front of loved ones or your job in my opinion.  I hear that often, where people are like, this has to come first, and they act like recovery work is some sort of crusade, but for those who like me, have a life to live that doesn't always a lot for recovery principles and recovery life, I've found that God, or my higher power, with it's perfect ability to provide exactly what I need, when I need it most, and often don't even know I need it, will carve out time frames for me to help others see it is possible to recover and stay recovered.  My recovery work is something I can do in my spare time, and that truth has really made recovery not so much of a pressured burden as I see it become for so many others in it.  

The book even says "all of us spend much of our spare time in the sort of effort which we are going to describe." 

If you are adverse to the book, or if you're alcoholism is fooling your into thinking the book called Alcoholics Anonymous is not worth your time, or just some cheesy writing that won't work in this world, I just want to say, if you look at it like it is a manual on what the problem is, while your mind is honestly telling you, "I don't know what the problem is", then you might want to read it, a little bit at a time or a lot. 

The book, tells the problem as they see it, from years of experience and from actual examples of it being a success, the way they do business regarding solving alcoholism's destructive nature.  The call the program, which are called the 12 steps for most, "useful" for anyone concerned with a drinking problem, and in my believe system that includes non-alcoholics too. 

The author says that in their experience to publish and spread their findings to the world in this book, they did research and analysis of medical, psychiatric, social, and religious factors, when creating their solutions to alcoholism.