by William Duncan Silkworth, M.D. The mystery of slips is not so deep as it may appear. While it does seem odd that an alcoholic, who has restored himself to a dignified place among his fellowmen and continues dry for years, should suddenly throw all his happiness overboard and find himself again in mortal peril of drowning in liquor, often the reason is simple. People are inclined to say, “there is something peculiar about alcoholics. They seem to be well, yet at any moment they may turn back to their old ways. You can never be sure.” This is largely twaddle. The alcoholic is a sick person. Under the technique of Alcoholics Anonymous he gets well – that is to say, his disease is arrested. There is nothing unpredictable about him any more than there is anything weird about a person who has arrested diabetes. Let’s get it clear, once and for all, that alcoholics are human beings. Then we can safeguard ourselves intelligently against most slips. In both professional and lay circles, there is a tendency to label everything that an alcoholic may do as “alcoholic behavior.” The truth is, it is simple human nature. It is very wrong to consider any of the personality traits observed in liquor addicts as peculiar to the alcoholic. Emotional and mental quirks are classified as symptoms of alcoholism merely because alcoholics have them, yet those same quirks can be found among non-alcoholics too. Actually they are symptoms of mankind! Of course, the alcoholic himself tends to think of himself as different, somebody special, with unique tendencies and reactions. Many psychiatrists, doctors, and therapists carry the same idea to extremes in their analyses and treatment of alcoholics.

Sometimes they make a complicated mystery of a condition which is found in all human beings, whether they drink whiskey or buttermilk. To be sure, alcoholism, like every other disease, does manifest itself in some unique ways. It does have a number of baffling peculiarities which differ from those of all other diseases. At the same time, any of the symptoms and much of the behaviour of alcoholism are closely paralleled and even duplicated in other diseases. The slip is a relapse! It is a relapse that occurs after the alcoholic has stopped drinking and started on the A.A. program of recovery. Slips usually occur in the early states of the alcoholic’sA.A. indoctrination, before he has had time to learn enough of the A.A. techniques and A.A. philosophy to give him a solid footing. But slips may also occur after an alcoholic has been a member of A.A. for many months or even several years, and it is in this kind, above all, that often finds a marked similarity between the alcoholic’s behavior and that of “normal” victims of other diseases. No one is startled by the fact that relapses are not uncommon among arrested tubercular patients. But here is a startling fact – the cause is often the same as the cause which leads to slips for the alcoholic.