Doctor Calls "Slip" More Normal Than Alcoholic

The problem of "staying stopped" has been with AAs since the early days, when each brother who fell forever by the wayside or returned, briefly and disastrously, to drinking raised a terrible question mark for the small band who still were not sure that "it works." The passing of time revealed that a certain percentage of relapses (and even fatalities) among arrested alcoholics is as normal as in the course of other diseases. An article in an early Grapevine by Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, AA's beloved "little doctor who loved drunks," helped ease anxiety about slips and greatly forwarded AAs' understanding of how to cope with them, both in themselves and others. The article is reprinted in response to numerous requests.