Charming is the Word for Alcoholics

Grapevine, July 1944 reprinted June 1959

Charming is the Word for Alcoholics

Down at the very bottom of the social scale of the AA society are the pariahs, the untouchables and the outcasts, all underprivileged and all known by an excoriating epithet, relatives.

I am a relative. I know my place. I am not complaining. But I hope no one will mind if I venture the plaintive confession that there are times, oh, many times when I wish I were an alcoholic. By that, I mean 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 privilege to meet many 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 ladies and gentlemen of both political parties; I have been entertained in the White House; I've broken bread with Kings, Ambassadors, and Ministers; and I say, after that catalog which could be extended, that I would prefer an evening with my AA friends to any person I have indicated.

I asked myself why I consider so charming these alcoholic caterpillars who have found their butterfly wings in AA. There are more reasons than one, but I can name a few.

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 an awareness of the universal truth. They are sensitive, which means they are hurt easily, and that helped them become alcoholics. But when they have found their restoration, they are still as sensitive as ever; responsive to the beauty and the truth and eager about the intangible glories of this life. That makes them charming companions.

They are imaginative, and that helped make them alcoholics. Some of them drank to flog their imaginations on to greater efforts. Others guzzled only to block out unendurable visions that rose in their imaginations. But when they found their restorations, their imagination is responsive to new incantations, and their talk abounds with color and might, and that makes them charming companions, too.

They are possessed of a sense of humor. Even in their cups they have been known to be damnably funny. Often it was being forced to take seriously the little and mean things of life that made them seek their escape in the bottle. But when they found their restoration, their sense of humor finds a blessed freedom and they are able to 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 heart. The fact that this 'at-one-ment' with God's universe had never been awakened within them is sometimes the reason they drank. They have found a power greater than themselves which they diligently serve. And, that gives them a charm that never was elsewhere on land and sea; it makes you know that God himself is charming, because the AA people reflect His mercy and forgiveness.

by Fulton Oursler