Page 264 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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THE MAN WHO MASTERED FEAR 249
financially. The birth of a baby boy did nothing to­
ward staying the downward spiral. When she finally
took the baby and left, I locked myself in the house
and stayed drunk for a month.
The next two years were simply a long, drawn-out
process of less and less work and more and more
whiskey. I ended up homeless, jobless, penniless, and
rudderless, as the problem guest of a close friend
whose family was out of town. Haunting me through
each day’s stupor—and there were eighteen or nine­
teen such days in this man’s home—was the thought:
Where do I go when his family comes home? When
the day of their return was almost upon me, and
suicide was the only answer I had been able to think
of, I went into Ralph’s room one evening and told him
the truth. He was a man of considerable means, and
he might have done what many men would have done
in such a case. He might have handed me fifty dollars
and said that I ought to pull myself together and make
a new start. I have thanked God many times in the
last sixteen years that that was just what he did not do!
Instead, he got dressed, took me out, bought me
three or four double shots, and put me to bed. The
next day he turned me over to a couple who, although
neither was an alcoholic, knew Dr. Bob and were will­
ing to drive me to Akron where they would turn me
over to his care. The only stipulation they made was
this: I had to make the decision myself. What de­
cision? The choice was limited. To go north into the
empty pine country and shoot myself, or to go south
in the faint hope that a bunch of strangers might help
me with my drinking problem. Well, suicide was a
last-straw matter, and I had not drawn the last straw