Page 179 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 158

158 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
but that won’t fix it. I’ve prayed to God on hangover
mornings and sworn that I’d never touch another drop
but by nine o’clock I’d be boiled as an owl.”
Next day found the prospect more receptive. He
had been thinking it over. “Maybe you’re right,” he
said. “God ought to be able to do anything.” Then
he added, “He sure didn’t do much for me when I was
trying to fight this booze racket alone.”
On the third day the lawyer gave his life to the care
and direction of his Creator, and said he was perfectly
willing to do anything necessary. His wife came,
scarcely daring to be hopeful, though she thought she
saw something different about her husband already.
He had begun to have a spiritual experience.
That afternoon he put on his clothes and walked
from the hospital a free man. He entered a political
campaign, making speeches, frequenting men’s gath­
ering places of all sorts, often staying up all night. He
lost the race by only a narrow margin. But he had
found God—and in finding God had found himself.
That was in June, 1935. He never drank again. He
too, has become a respected and useful member of his
community. He has helped other men recover, and is
a power in the church from which he was long absent.
So, you see, there were three alcoholics in that town,
who now felt they had to give to others what they had
found, or be sunk. After several failures to find others,
a fourth turned up. He came through an acquaintance
who had heard the good news. He proved to be a
devil-may-care young fellow whose parents could not
make out whether he wanted to stop drinking or not.
They were deeply religious people, much shocked by
their son’s refusal to have anything to do with the