Page 228 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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OUR SOUTHERN FRIEND 213
other child. But she is not glad to see me. I have
been drinking while the baby was arriving. Her father
stays with her.
It is a cold, bleak day in November. I have fought
hard to stop drinking. Each battle has ended in de­
feat. I tell my wife I cannot stop drinking. She begs
me to go to a hospital for alcoholics that has been
recommended. I say I will go. She makes the ar­
rangements, but I will not go. I’ll do it all myself.
This time I’m off of it for good. I’ll just take a few
beers now and then.
It is the last day of the following October, a dark,
rainy morning. I come to on a pile of hay in a barn.
I look for liquor and can’t find any. I wander to a
table and drink five bottles of beer. I must get some
liquor. Suddenly I feel hopeless, unable to go on. I
go home. My wife is in the living room. She had
looked for me last evening after I left the car and
wandered off into the night. She had looked for me
this morning. She has reached the end of her rope.
There is no use trying any more, for there is nothing
to try. “Don’t say anything,” I say to her. “I am
going to do something.”
I am in the hospital for alcoholics. I am an alco­
holic. The insane asylum lies ahead. Could I have
myself locked up at home? One more foolish idea. I
might go out West on a ranch where I couldn’t get
anything to drink. I might do that. Another foolish
idea. I wish I were dead, as I have often wished be­
fore. I am too yellow to kill myself.
Four alcoholics play bridge in a smoke-filled room.
Anything to get my mind from myself. The game is
over and the other three leave. I start to clean up the