Page 199 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 184

184 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
or four years, although I would get drunk every time I
could get hold of enough to drink to get started. My
wife and I belonged to some bridge clubs, and they
began to make wine and serve it. However, after two
or three trials, I found this was not satisfactory be­
cause they did not serve enough to satisfy me. So I
would refuse to drink. This problem was soon solved,
however, as I began to take my bottle along with me
and hide it in the bathroom or in the shrubbery out­
side.
As time went on, my drinking became progressively
worse. I would be away from my office two or three
weeks at a time, horrible days and nights when I
would lie on the floor of my home and reach over
to get the bottle, take a drink, and then go back
into oblivion.
During the first six months of 1935, I was hospital­
ized eight times for intoxication and shackled to the
bed two or three days before I even knew where I was.
On June 26, 1935, I came to in the hospital, and to
say I was discouraged is to put it mildly. Each of the
seven times that I had left this hospital in the previous
six months, I had come out fully determined in my
own mind that I would not get drunk again—for at
least six or eight months. It hadn’t worked out that
way, and I didn’t know what the matter was and did
not know what to do.
I was moved into another room that morning and
there was my wife. I thought to myself, Well, she is
going to tell me this is the end, and I certainly
couldn’t blame her and did not intend to try to justify
myself. She told me that she had been talking to a
couple of fellows about drinking. I resented this very