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March 2003

Three Ways Of Looking at Abandonment

From top to bottom, high to low, and the wild in-between

For me, there are three different senses of the word "abandonment," each speaking eloquently about alcoholism. When we drink excessively, we feel some release from pain and sorrow, some escape from the pervasive feeling of being left behind. That only works for a while, however. Then, devilishly, the drink itself makes us feel utterly abandoned. If this feeling of abandonment is deep enough to feel like the bottom of a pit, we may have reached the turning point that the fifth chapter of the Big Book describes as awakening to a new way of living without alcohol.

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