Page 242 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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THE VICIOUS CYCLE 227
ful knowledge in places where matches are prohib­
ited.) They, too, had taken a train to one town and
had wakened hundreds of miles in the opposite direc­
tion, never knowing how they got there. The same
old routines seemed to be common to us all. During
that first weekend, I decided to stay in New York and
take all they gave out with, except the “God stuff.”
I knew they needed to straighten out their thinking
and habits, but I was all right; I just drank too much.
Just give me a good front and a couple of bucks, and
I’d be right back in the big time. I’d been dry three
weeks, had the wrinkles out, and had sobered up my
sponsor all by myself!
Bill and Hank had just taken over a small automo­
bile polish company, and they offered me a job—ten
dollars a week and keep at Hank’s house. We were all
set to put DuPont out of business.
At that time the group in New York was composed
of about twelve men who were working on the prin­
ciple of every drunk for himself; we had no real for­
mula and no name. We would follow one man’s ideas
for a while, decide he was wrong, and switch to an-
other’s method. But we were staying sober as long
as we kept and talked together. There was one meet­
ing a week at Bill’s home in Brooklyn, and we all took
turns there spouting off about how we had changed
our lives overnight, how many drunks we had saved
and straightened out, and last but not least, how God
had touched each of us personally on the shoulder.
Boy, what a circle of confused idealists! Yet we all
had one really sincere purpose in our hearts, and that
was not to drink. At our weekly meeting I was a
menace to serenity those first few months, for I took