Bottom

 

From "Medicine Looks at Alcoholics Anonymous":

"I heard of the need to hit bottom, of the necessity for accepting a higher Power, of the indispensability of humility. These were ideas which had never crossed my professional horizon and certainly had never influenced my nonprofessional thinking or attitudes. Revolutionary as they were, they nevertheless made sense, and I found myself embarked on a tour of discovery.

The individual alcoholic was always fighting an admission of being licked, of admitting that he was powerless. If and when he surrendered, he quit fighting, admitted he was licked, and accepted the fact that he was powerless and needed help.

 If he did not surrender, a thousand crises could hit him and nothing constructive would happen. The need to induce surrender became a new therapeutic goal. The miracle of A.A. was now a little clearer, though the reason was still obscure why the program and the fellowship of A.A. could induce a surrender which could in turn lead to a period of no drinking."

Dr. Harry Tiebout, 1955
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pg. 247