CHARMING IS THE WORD FOR ALCOHOLICS BY FULTON OUSLER
Liberty Magazine – Copyright 1940
Wings to Fly
Down at the very bottom of the social scale of AA society
are the pariahs, the untouchables, and the outcasts, all known by one
excoriating epithet-relatives. I am a relative. I know my place. I am not
complaining. But I hope no one minds if I venture the plaintive confession that
there are times, oh, many, many, times when I wish I had been an alcoholic. By
that I mean that I wish I were an AA. The reason is that I consider the AA
people the most charming in the world. Such is my considered opinion. As a journalist
it has been my fortune to meet many of the people who are considered charming.
I number among my friends stars, and lesser
lights of stage and cinema; writers are my daily diet. I know the ladies and
gentlemen of both political parties; I have been entertained in the White
House. I have broken bread with kings and ministers and ambassadors and I say after
that catalog, which could be extended, that I would prefer an evening with my AA friends to any person or group of
persons I have indicated. I ask myself why I consider so charming these
alcoholic caterpillars who have found their butterfly wings in Alcoholics
Anonymous.
There are more reasons than one, but
I can name a few. They are imaginative, and that helps to make them alcoholics.
Some of them drank to flog their ambition on to greater effors.
Others guzzled only to black out unendurable demons that rose in their
imagination. But when they have found their restoration, their imagination is
responsive to new incantations, and their talk abounds with color and light,
and that makes them charming companions too. The AA people are what they are,
and they were what they were, because they are sensitive, imaginative,
possessed of a sense of humor and awareness of universal truth. They are
sensitive, which means they are hurt easily, and that helped them to become
alcoholics. But when they have found their restoration, they are still as
sensitive as ever, responsive to beauty and to truth and eager about the
intangible glories of this life. That makes them charming 
companions. They are possessed with
a sense of humor. Even in their cups they have been known to say damnable funny
things. Often it was being forced to take seriously the little and mean things
of life that make them seek escape in a bottle. But when they have found
restoration, their sense of humor finds a blessed freedom, and they are able to
reach a godlike state where they can laugh at themselves, the very height of
self-conquest. Go to the meetings and listen to the laughter. At what are they
laughing? At ghoulish memories over which weaker souls would cringe in useless
remorse. And that makes them wonderful people to be with by candlelight. And
they are possessed of a sense of universal truth. That is often a new thing in
their hearts. The fact that this at-one-meant with God's universe had never
been awakened in them is sometimes the reason why they drank. The fact that it
was at last awakened is almost always the reason why they were restored to the
good and simple ways of life. Stand with them when the meeting is over and
listen while they say the Our Father. They have found a power greater than
themselves which they diligently serve. And that gives them a charm that never
was elsewhere on land or sea. It makes you know that God, Himself, is really
charming, because the AA people reflect His mercy and His forgiveness.
Any A.A. Literature referenced on this Website, or quoted exactly by a sharer in our Meeting Room, is a Copyright of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. The opinions and experiences shared are of the individual's, and not necessarily in agreement with the Program of A.A.found in the "Big Book" ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS.