Page 237 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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222 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
go to any church, except for weddings or for funerals.
At seventeen I entered the university, really to
satisfy my father, who wanted me to study medicine
there as he had. That is where I had my first drink,
and I still remember it, for every “first” drink after­
wards did exactly the same trick—I could feel it go
right through every bit of my body and down to my
very toes. But each drink after the first seemed to
become less effective, and after three or four, they all
seemed like water. I was never a hilarious drunk; the
more I drank, the quieter I got, and the drunker I got,
the harder I fought to stay sober. So it is clear that
I never had any fun out of drinking—I would be the
soberest-seeming one in the crowd, and, all of a sud­
den, I would be the drunkest. Even that first night I
blacked out, which leads me to believe that I was an
alcoholic from my very first drink. The first year in
college I just got by in my studies. I majored in poker
and drinking. I refused to join any fraternity, as I
wanted to be a freelance, and that year my drinking
was confined to one-night stands, once or twice a
week. The second year my drinking was more or less
restricted to weekends, but I was nearly kicked out for
scholastic failure.
In the spring of 1917, in order to beat being fired
from school, I became “patriotic” and joined the army.
I am one of the lads who came out of the service with
a lower rank than when I went in. I had been to OTC
the previous summer, so I went into the army as a
sergeant but I came out a private, and you really have
to be unusual to do that. In the next two years, I
washed more pans and peeled more potatoes than any
other doughboy. In the army, I became a periodic