I saw another building; this is the place where they sell onoka, the mind changer. Now the messenger said: true, this is what you saw. Alcohol will destroy many of our people, it will cause splits among families and hardship for young children. It will take many lives before their time. Your people will come to like alcohol and depend on it. For many, alcohol will rule them for the rest of their lives.

Skanientariio  Six Nations

For most folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt--and one more failure.

The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we become subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did--then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen--Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!

Big Book  pg. 151

Reprinted with permission A.A.W.S.

Great Mystery, help me to remember the destruction alcohol will cause if I pick up a drink.