Page 254 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 239

JIM’S STORY 239
Carolina was a dry county. I thought that this would
be a big help to me. I would meet some new faces
and be in a dry county.
But I found that after I got to North Carolina, it
wasn’t any different. The state was different, but I
wasn’t. Nevertheless, I stayed sober there about six
months, because I knew that Vi was to come later and
bring the children. We had two girls and a boy at
that time. Something happened. Vi had secured work
in Washington. She was also in the government ser­
vice. I started inquiring where I could get a drink,
and, of course, I found that it wasn’t hard. I think
whiskey was cheaper there than it was in Washington.
Matters got worse all the time until finally they got so
bad that I was reinvestigated by the government.
Being an alcoholic, slick, and having some good sense
left, I survived the investigation. Then I had my first
bad stomach hemorrhage. I was out of work for about
four days. I got into a lot of financial difficulties too.
I borrowed five hundred dollars from the bank and
three hundred from the loan shop, and I drank that up
pretty fast. Then I decided that I’d go back to Wash­
ington.
My wife received me graciously, although she was
living in a one-room-with-kitchen affair. She’d been
reduced to that. I promised that I was going to do
the right thing. We were now both working in the
same agency. I continued to drink. I got drunk one
night in October, went to sleep in the rain, and woke
up with pneumonia. We continued to work together,
and I continued to drink, but I guess, deep down
within our hearts, we both knew I couldn’t stop drink­
ing. Vi thought I didn’t want to stop. We had several