How do you justify calling alcoholism an
illness, and not a moral responsibility?
Answer
Early
in A.A.'s history, very natural questions arose
among theologians. There was a Mr. Henry Link
who had written "The Return to Religion
(Macmillan Co., 1937). One day I received a call
from him. He stated that he strongly objected to
the A.A. position that alcoholism was an
illness. This concept, he felt, removed moral
responsibility from alcoholics. He had been
voicing this complaint about psychiatrists in
the American Mercury. And now, he stated, he was
about to lambaste A.A. too. Of course, I made
haste to point out that we A. A.'s did not use
the concept of sickness to absolve our members
from moral responsibility. On the contrary, we
used the fact of fatal illness to clamp the
heaviest kind of moral responsibility on to the
sufferer. The further point was made that in his
early days of drinking the alcoholic often was
no doubt guilty of irresponsibility and
gluttony. But once the time of compulsive
drinking, veritable lunacy had arrived and he
couldn't very well be held accountable for his
conduct. He then had a lunacy which condemned
him to drink, in spite of all he could do; he
had developed a bodily sensitivity to alcohol
that guaranteed his final madness and death.
When this state of affairs was pointed out to
him, he was placed immediately under the
heaviest kind of pressure to accept A.A.'s moral
and spiritual program of regeneration - namely,
our Twelve Steps. Fortunately, Mr. Link was
satisfied with this view of the use that we were
making of the alcoholic's illness. I am glad to
report that nearly all theologians who have
since thought about this matter have also agreed
with that early position. While it is most
obvious that free will in the matter of alcohol
has virtually disappeared in most cases, we A.A.
's do point out that plenty of free will is left
in other areas, It certainly takes a large
amount of willingness, and a great exertion of
the will to accept and practice the A.A.
program. It is by this very exertion of the will
that the alcoholic corresponds with the grace by
which his drinking obsession can be expelled. (N.C.C.A.
'Blue Book', Vol.12, 1960)
