Big Book - Personal Stories - Part II - They Stopped in ...

1 Part 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 278 THEY Stopped IN TIMEA mong today s incoming members, many havenever reached the advanced stages of alcoholism, thoughgiven time all might of these fortunate ones have had little or no ac-quaintance with delirium, with hospitals, asylums, andjails. Some were drinking heavily, and there had been occa-sional serious episodes. But with many, drinking had beenlittle more than a sometimes uncontrollable had any of these lost either health, business, family,or do men and women like these join seventeen who now tell their experiences answerthat question.

2 They saw that they had become actual or po-tential alcoholics, even though no serious harm had yetbeen realized that repeated lack of drinking control,when they really wanted control, was the fatal symptomthat spelled problem drinking. This, plus mounting emo-tional disturbances, convinced them that compulsive alco-holism already had them; that complete ruin would be onlya question of this danger, they came to They realized thatin the end alcoholism could be as mortal as cancer; cer-tainly no sane man would wait for a malignant growth tobecome fatal before seeking , these seventeen s, and hundreds of thou-sands like them, have been saved years of infinite sum it up something like this: We didn t wait to hitbottom because, thank God, we could see the , the bottom came up and hit us.

3 That sold us onAlcoholics Anonymous. 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 280(1)THE MISSING LINKHe looked at everything as the cause of his unhap-piness except i waseight or nine years old, life sud-denly became very difficult. Feelings beganto emerge that I did not understand. Depression creptinto my life as I started to feel alone, even in crowdedrooms. In fact, life didn t make much sense to me atall. It s hard to say what sparked all of this, to pinpointone fact or event that changed everything forever. Thefact of the matter was, I was miserable from early onin my was all very confusing.

4 I remember isolating onthe playground, watching all the other children laugh-ing and playing and smiling, and not feeling like Icould relate at all. I felt different. I didn t feel as if Iwas one of them. Somehow, I thought, I didn t fit school marks soon reflected these feelings. Mybehavior and attitude seemed to become troublesometo everyone around me. I soon began spending moretime in the principal s office than in the classroom. Myparents, perplexed by such an unhappy son, beganhaving difficulties. My house was soon filled with thesounds of arguments and yelling about how to handleme.

5 I found that running away from home could sup-ply me with some sort of temporary solace. Until 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 281course, the police would find me and bring me back tomy house and my worried that time I started seeing therapists and spe-cialists, each with a different theory and a different so-lution. They conducted special tests and interviewsdesigned to get to the root of my troubles, and cameto the conclusion that I had a learning disability andwas depressed. The psychiatrist started me on somemedication, and the problems in school started toclear up. Even some of the depression began to easeup for a bit.

6 However, something still seemed funda-mentally the problem, I soon found what appearedto be the solution to everything. At age fifteen, I trav-eled with my family to Israel. My brother was to bebar mitzvahed atop Masada. There was no legal drink-ing age, so I found it quite easy to walk into a bar andorder a drink. New Year s Eve fell in the middle of thetrip, and since the Jewish calendar celebrates a differ-ent New Year than the Gregorian calendar, the onlycelebration was being held in the American sector ofa university. I got drunk for the first time that night. Itchanged everything. A stop at a local bar began the evening.

7 I ordered abeer from the waitress and as I took the first sip,something was immediately different. I looked aroundme, at the people drinking and dancing, smiling andlaughing, all of whom were much older than , I somehow felt I belonged. From there, Imade my way to the university, where I found hun-dreds of other Americans celebrating New Year s the night was over, I had started a fight with anumber of college-aged drunken fellows and returned282 ALCOHOLICS 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 282to the hotel stinking drunk and riddled with yes, what a grand evening it was! I fell in love thatnight with a to the States, I was determined to con-tinue with my newfound love affair.

8 I found myselftrying to convince my friends to join me, but I wasmet with resistance. Still determined, I set out to findnew friends, friends who could help me maintain thisfantastic solution to my most desperate problems. Myescapades started as a weekend pursuit and pro-gressed into a daily obsession. At first, it took severalbeers to get me drunk to my satisfaction. However,within three years, it took a fifth and a half of vodka,a bottle of wine, and several beers in an evening s timeto satisfactorily black me out. I would obtain alcoholby any means necessary. That meant lying, stealing,and cheating.

9 My motto was, if you felt like I did,you d have to get drunk the feelings of hopelessness and depression pro-gressed, so did my drinking. Thoughts of suicide camemore and more frequently. It felt as if things werenever going to change. Progress with my therapistcame to almost a complete halt. The hopelessness wascompounded by the fact that the one thing that wasbringing me relief, the one thing I counted on to takethe pain away, was ultimately destroying me. The end,I feared, was last semester in high school marked my was everyday drinking then. Since I had alreadybeen accepted at college, I consciously decided tomake that last semester one big party.

10 But it was nofun at all. I was miserable. I graduated narrowly andtook a job at a local garage. It was difficult to manage THE MISSING LINK 8/31/15 9:08 AM Page 283my drinking and a job since they were both full time,but I concocted all kinds of lies to ensure that nothingwould interfere with my drinking. After being repeat-edly reprimanded at work for being late in the morn-ings, I made up a story to hide the fact that I wasalways hung over. I told my manager that I had cancerand needed to go to the doctor for treatment everymorning. I would say whatever I needed to say to pro-tect my often, I was having these little moments ofclarity, times I knew for sure that I was an when I was looking at the bottom of my glassasking myself, Why am I doing this?