eer see themselves as "down and out," a self-image which appears to be a necessary requisite of getting and staying sober:
Such disillusionment was reported in a study of 150 [Alcoholics Anonymous] members. Asked what had happened just before joining A.A. to make them ready for A.A., some of the respondents simply expressed their over-all feeling of despair. . . . The comments ran as follows: "Complete feeling of being 'licked.' Dejected and remorseful---'down and out'"; "the feeling that I was just in a sort of whirl-pool which was slowly taking me beyond hope"; "A beaten, hopeless person, my back to the wall"; and "at the end of my rope."
Spradley himself takes the same approach in his book---trying to portray the urban nomad from the nomad's own point of view. He argues that they have been studied by analysts who are not themselves such nomads, and their analyses have treated the nomads as individuals who are outside of the structure of American society. Spradley, however, sees them as an important part of the society, and he argues that they deserve the right to
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