Surrender versus compliance in therapy, with special reference to alcoholism.

SINCE BECOMING a side-line observer of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939, my approach to alcoholism has undergone an almost total reorientation. For the first time I saw what peace of mind means in the achievement of sobriety and I began to consider the emotional factors involved from a very different viewpoint. In A.A. meetings, the role of resentments was a recurrent theme. This seemed significant. Continuing this line of observation, I found that another enemy of sobriety was defiance, which Sillman (1) had already described as "defiant individuality," a major hallmark of the personality of alcoholics.