Page 263 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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248 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
job with a downtown printer. From this job and the
next one with yet another printer, I was courteously
dismissed. I simply did not have the pep to do
hard, “cold-turkey” selling. I switched to real estate bro­
kerage and property management work. Almost simul­
taneously, I discovered that cocktails in the late
afternoon and highballs in the evening relieved the
many tensions of the day. This happy combination
of pleasant work and alcohol lasted for five years. Of
course, the latter ultimately killed the former, but of
this, more anon.
All this changed when I was thirty years old. My
parents died, both in the same year, leaving me, a
sheltered and somewhat immature man, on my own.
I moved into a “bachelor hall.” These men all drank
on Saturday nights and enjoyed themselves. My pat­
tern of drinking became very different from theirs.
I had bad, nervous headaches, particularly at the base
of my neck. Liquor relieved these. At last I discov­
ered alcohol as a cure-all. I joined their Saturday
night parties and enjoyed myself too. But I also
stayed up weeknights after they had retired and drank
myself into bed. My thinking about drinking had un­
dergone a great change. Liquor had become a crutch
on the one hand and a means of retreat from life on
the other.
The ensuing nine years were the Depression years,
both nationally and personally. With the bravery born
of desperation, and abetted by alcohol, I married a
young and lovely girl. Our marriage lasted four years.
At least three of those four years must have been a
living hell for my wife, because she had to watch the
man she loved disintegrate morally, mentally, and