Page 192 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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DOCTOR BOB’S NIGHTMARE 177
pockets, but they were inspected, and that became
too risky. I used also to put it up in four ounce bottles
and stick several in my stocking tops. This worked
nicely until my wife and I went to see Wallace Beery
in “Tugboat Annie,” after which the pant-leg and
stocking racket were out!
I will not take space to relate all my hospital or
sanitarium experiences.
During all this time we became more or less ostra­
cized by our friends. We could not be invited out
because I would surely get tight, and my wife dared
not invite people in for the same reason. My phobia
for sleeplessness demanded that I get drunk every
night, but in order to get more liquor for the next
night, I had to stay sober during the day, at least up
to four o’clock. This routine went on with few inter­
ruptions for seventeen years. It was really a horrible
nightmare, this earning money, getting liquor, smug­
gling it home, getting drunk, morning jitters, taking
large doses of sedatives to make it possible for me to
earn more money, and so on ad nauseam. I used to
promise my wife, my friends, and my children that
I would drink no more—promises which seldom kept
me sober even through the day, though I was very
sincere when I made them.
For the benefit of those experimentally inclined, I
should mention the so-called beer experiment. When
beer first came back, I thought that I was safe. I
could drink all I wanted of that. It was harmless;
nobody ever got drunk on beer. So I filled the cellar
full, with the permission of my good wife. It was not
long before I was drinking at least a case and a half a
day. I put on thirty pounds of weight in about two