Hitting Bottom Is Not Necessary

From time immemorial to the present people have changed their drinking for the better and they have not necessarily needed to "hit bottom" or find a "higher power" to do so. Some people have used organized religion as a way to quit or moderate their use of alcohol. Bill Wilson was not the first heavy drinker in history to quit drinking. Georgia Tom Dorsey is a well known example of a person who left a life of heavy drinking and blues singing to become the father of American Gospel Music. Georgia Tom renounced his drinking life with the help of organized religion. SOS founder Jim Christopher is an example of an atheist who quit drinking without the help of any "Higher Power" at all. AA's claim that organized religion is useless to help drinkers and that one can only quit drinking by relying on AA and AA's Higher Power is thus not in keeping with historical fact.

Hitting bottom may be a necessary prerequisite of joining AA since AA asks you to turn your life and will over to AA and to never leave AA for the rest of your life. However, hitting bottom is not a necessity for you in order to quit drinking or reduce your alcohol intake or even to drink more safely. All that is required for a person to change their drinking for the better is a rational decision and a visceral desire to do so.

At HAMS we have found that the best tools for making and implementing this decision are a Cost Benefit Analysis and participation in our support groups. See element 1 of the 17 elements of HAMS for an example of how to do a Cost Benefit Analysis.

HAMS does not expect you to stick around HAMS forever. We are always happy if HAMS members choose to stick around to continue to help new people, but we also understand that it is very important for people to move on and get on with their lives. Becoming dependent on HAMS would just become a replacement addiction for the dependence on booze--and we do not wish to see that. That is what happens with AA when people replace their alcohol addiction with an AA addiction.

You CAN change your drinking TODAY!! You do not need to wait to hit bottom.