Page 225 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 210

210 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Final exams of my senior year and I may somehow
graduate. I would never have tried, but mother counts
on it so. A case of measles saved me from being kicked
out during my sophomore year.
But the end is in sight. My last exam and an easy
one. I gaze at the board with its questions. Can’t re­
member the answer to the first. I’ll try the second. No
soap there. I don’t seem to remember anything. I
concentrate on one of the questions. I don’t seem to
be able to keep my mind on what I am doing. I get
uneasy. If I don’t get started soon, I won’t have time
to finish. No use. I can’t think.
I leave the room, which the honor system allows. I
go to my room. I pour out half a tumbler of grain
alcohol and fill it with ginger ale. Now back to the
exam. My pen moves rapidly. I know enough of the
answers to get by. Good old John Barleycorn! He can
be depended on. What a wonderful power he has over
the mind! He has given me my diploma!
Underweight! How I hate that word. Three at­
tempts to enlist in the service, and three failures be­
cause of being skinny. True, I have recently recovered
from pneumonia and have an alibi, but my friends are
in the war or going, and I am not. I visit a friend who
is awaiting orders. The atmosphere of “eat, drink, and
be merry” prevails and I absorb it. I drink a lot every
night. I can hold a lot now, more than the others.
I am examined for the draft and pass the physical
test. I am to go to camp on November 13. The
Armistice is signed on the eleventh, and the draft is
called off. Never in the service! The war leaves me
with a pair of blankets, a toilet kit, a sweater knit by
my sister, and a still greater sense of inferiority.