Читать книгу Voices of Long-Term Sobriety - Группа авторов - Страница 8

“He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.”

“A Vision for You,” Alcoholics Anonymous

The phrase “jumping-off place” has two interesting meanings. The first is a remote place, somewhere far from human civilization. For active alcoholics that represents a condition that’s desperate, lonely and hopeless. At the end, the drunk feels cut off from the human community, if only in her own mind.

But the second meaning brings us hope after despair: a jumping-off place is also one where a journey begins.

The old-timers in this section describe how they came to that dark place where there seemed nowhere else to go, and how they found AA and the adventure began.