Will A.A. Work For Everyone?

The A.A. program of recovery from alcoholism, we believe, will work for almost anyone who has a desire to stop drinking.  It may work even for those who feel they are being prodded in the direction of A.A.  Many of us make our first contact with A.A. because of social or job pressures.  Later, we make our own decision.  We have seen some alcoholics stumble for a while before “getting” the program.  We have seen others who make only token efforts to follow the tested principles through which over a million of us now maintain our sobriety; token efforts are generally not enough.

But, no matter how down-and-out an alcoholic may be, or how high he or she may be on the social and economic scales, we know from experience and observation that A.A. offers a sober way out of the squirrel cage of confused problem drinking.  Most of us have found it an easy way.  When we first turned to A.A., many of us had a number of serious problems – problems involving money, family, job, and our own personalities.  We soon discovered that our immediate central problem was alcohol.  Once we had that problem under control, we were able to make successful approaches to the other problems.  Solutions to these problems have not always come easily, but we have been able to cope with them far more effectively when sober than we were able to do during our drinking days.