Page 210 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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GRATITUDE IN ACTION 195
that God did not exist. I thought, “If this loving God
exists, as they say, He would not treat me this way.
God would not act like this.” I felt sorry for myself a
lot in those days.
My family and employers were concerned about my
drinking, but I had become rather arrogant. I bought
a 1931 Ford with an inheritance from my grand­
mother, and my wife and I made a trip to Cape Cod.
On the way back, we stopped at my uncle’s place in
New Hampshire. This uncle had taken me under his
wing at the time of my mother’s death, and he worried
about me. Now he said to me, “Dave, if you stop
drinking for a full year, I will give you the Ford road­
ster I just bought.” I loved that car, so I immediately
promised I wouldn’t drink for a whole year. And I
meant it. Yet I was drinking again before we reached
the Canadian border. I was powerless over alcohol. I
was learning that I could do nothing to fight it off,
even while I was denying the fact.
On Easter weekend 1944, I found myself in a jail
cell in Montreal. By now, I was drinking to escape the
horrible thoughts I had whenever I was sober enough
to become aware of my situation. I was drinking to
avoid seeing what I had become. The job I’d had for
twenty years and the new car were long gone. I had
undergone three stays in a psychiatric hospital. God
knows I didn’t want to drink, yet to my great despair,
I always returned to the infernal merry-go-round.
I wondered how this misery would end. I was full of
fear. I was afraid to tell others what I felt lest they
would think I was insane. I was terribly lonely, full of
self-pity, and terrified. Most of all, I was in a deep de­
pression.