WE ARE RECOVERED Failing to offer the un-recovered alcoholic hope for recovery, is deadly.

"He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end."

Failing to offer the un-recovered alcoholic hope for recovery, is deadly.
The market would recover, but I wouldn't. That was a hard thought. Should I kill myself? (Bill W. in his story, p6)

When presented with the idea that he might never recover, Bill Wilson's spiritually diseased mind immediately delivered to him the thought - a  solution to his problem. That thought sounded like a question, "Should I kill myself?" 

This prospect that Bill might never recover brought him to the brink of a condition that is common to real alcoholics. We know it today as Suicidal Ideation.
Many alcoholics who have thought of suicide, move on to an attempt - fully intending to succeed. Any psychologist knows well that the very first indicator of Suicidal Ideation is usually hopelessness.
Now why on earth would we want to tell an alcoholic that he will never recover; that he has no hope of ever recovering; that no alcoholic ever recovers - when this is clearly a harmful idea to the real alcoholic - as Bill was. Why?

Though Bill narrates his own 'stinking-thinking' quite a bit in the Big Book his morbid thoughts never came to fruition; thank God. Bill did indeed recover before then.  "We have recovered" is the life saving idea that holds hope to the, yet-to-recover alcoholic desperate for a solution - sometimes any solution. Sometime a final solution.

When a real alcoholic stands at the gates of death are we going to push him through or are we going to tell him the truth, that "We, OF Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

"Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death."

As Doctor Silkworth observed through his experiences in working with alcoholics,"Many times alcoholics are situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight." (The Doctors Opinion)

The supreme sacrifice. That is death by ones own hand - for seeing that once an alcoholic takes any alcohol at all into his body it is impossible for him to stop.

Something happens to the real alcoholic that does not happen to anyone who is not alcoholic.

It doesn't happen to hard drinkers. Not to non-alcoholic drug addicts. Not to sex addicted coin collectors. Not to sugar addicted plumbers.
The inability to stop only happens to the "distinct entity" described in the magnificent spiritual text, story and "How To" book, “Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism”. That entity we call alcoholic.

"The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. "

If those of us who have discovered and embrace the spiritual solution offered through the Twelve  Steps would grow some onions  (That's "Get a set of balls" to less sensitive readers) we could lose much of the secular, still "recovering" type of treatment center jargon that has leeched into a once effect spiritual Fellowship.
"Never recover" and "Always recovering" may not mean too much among non-alcoholics, even among those who have a drinking problem -  but to those fitting the AA description of the true alcoholic  it is extremely harmful. It is not the display of humility some imagine.
Instead it is bold, secular posturing within a fellowship that prefers spirituality - tantamount to spitting into the face of Truth. It is not an AA concept. Never was.
"Recovering" it is not merely a harmless matter of semantic choice.If you think it is, then you definitely have not yet learned the Big Book's "our description of the alcoholic"  is - and it is a deadly pity that you think you do.

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• To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.
• In step one we learned the principle of honesty.
• A Freethinker's Steps For Recovery From Alcoholism
• The essential lesson that infuses A.A.: it is the power of one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic about the consequences, but particularly the feelings, engendered by this hopeless illness that can lead to lifelong sobriety.
• "Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices," we read in the introductory "Doctor's Opinion" section of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• Spiritual principles practiced in Alcoholics Anonymous which clearly transcend the religious differences which seem to keep mankind in perpetual strife.
• There are many suffering codependents in AA who are not open minded enough to realize that Bill Wilson - one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous - would have loved to have had the tools we have available to us today.
• Alcoholics Anonymous of the millions of lives saved and transformed by this extraordinary organisation, just as many have failed to grasp its simple message and the result has been personal hell and untimely death.
• Alcohol has too much power over people like us. In the end it wins out, unless we are willing to surrender and make the necessary changes to our lives.