People, Places and Things

"You'd drink too if you had my wife, my job, my problems, etc." is heard from every alcoholic and addict.  We ourselves are often confused and think that we drink to relieve problems created by persons, places and things.  Eventually we see that we drink because we want to, then we need to, then we have to.  Our drinking is only marginally connected to people, places and things.  When we become alcoholic our drinking is like breathing, we have no choice.

To recover we must stop blaming people, places and things and accept our illness.  We can learn to cope with situations in our lives only after we stop drinking.  Learning to stop drinking and then learning to stay stopped is what we need to know about.