My Return from the Half-World of Alcoholism

A letter to Alcoholics Anonymous saved the author’s life. Condensed from The Grapevine

by Anonymous

A year ago I was a hopeless alcoholic. I deck simply rushed up and hit me. There must tried to stop drinking, but the harder I tried the have been a dozen such falls before a minister more I drank. I drank to get drunk. I drank to found me spattered with blood and head laid stay sober. open. Alcoholics Anonymous jerked me back to There wasn’t much I missed in the reality. misadventures of advanced alcoholics. I tried to I had only a vague knowledge of re-enlist but could not make the grade -because Alcoholics Anonymous but I did manage to part of alcoholism. Frustrated, I became involved in the haze in my head long enough to remember street fights and frequently woke up in a jail cell, that the headquarters were in New York City. I writhing in the excruciating paid of alcoholic wrote them, pleading on the envelope: “New neuritis. Under the usual treatment accorded York Postmaster: Please find these people for drunks–such as 30 hours’ solitary confinement-me. I am a veteran of World Wars I and II. I alcoholism thrives. All I thought about was need help!” Later I was told that when the getting a drink to blot out the humiliation of the postman delivered the letter to the AA office, he experience. said: “We found you for the soldier. Now you fix One night I went to the kitchen to seek a him up.” hidden bottle. Mistaking the cellar door for the That started AA’s letters. I was remotely cupboard, I fell down the stairway. Hours later I located beyond personal contact with the returned to consciousness and saw our three organization or any of its branches. The letters cats silhouetted against the open door of the came in an unbroken flow, often daily, most of furnace, watching me. I felt ashamed. Their them by air mail. They were written in terms I silent, questioning gaze was more effective than could understand, and pulled no punches. the rebuke of any person. I do not believe in excuses and make Crisis impended now. The doctor did not none, but there were certain reasons for my have to say, “It’s killing you.” I knew it. I cut drinking. I had been honorably discharged from down on liquor one day, only to drink harder the the Marine Corps and was working at night. My next. I existed in a gray half-world. Somewhere daughter worked during the day. My son, who in the depths of my mind there stirred a remote was with the Army Air Force in China, dropped recollection of Alcoholics Anonymous. Grasping out of contact for months. My wife was gravely ill at this straw, I wrote that first letter. and we had no one to help. Caught in a grind When the reply came from AA, it was that kept me exhausted, I drank for energy. brief but reassuring: “AA will work if you want it Liquor became a crutch upon which I leaned to work.” That threw a lot of responsibility right more and more heavily. back in my lap. The letter continued: “The After my wife died I set about drinking requirement for membership in Alcoholics continually for escape. One rainy night a car ran Anonymous is simply the sincere desire to stop over me and I was left lying on the highway. drinking, and you certainly seem to have that. After weeks in the hospital I could finally We will do all possible to help you, and of course walk by using a cane. I set out to hunt a drink. there is absolutely no charge.” Wishing me luck, Drinking with head injuries made walking they asked me to write again. I did. difficult–at hundred-yard intervals the world One point from the booklets the dissolved. There was no sensation of falling; the organization sent me proved to be the key to the

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whole plan: “Get up in the morning determined I shuddered to think how close I had that you will not have a drink throughout the day. been to disaster, and was mystified by the Don’t say you will never drink. Just concern chance guidance which had brought that yourself with this day.” It made sense. particular message at the crucial moment. Days went by and I was standing fast. Letters always were expertly timed, But there was more here than a state of mind, always bright and frequently sprightly. Not long and that is where my doctor came in. He used ago, after several bad days, I was frightened, sedatives and thiamin hydrochloride (B1) to and I wrote AA. The answer was, “In the first steady my nerves and help my appetite. place, will you please calm down! By the time I Still, a tiger stalked me–bitter memories finish reading one of the letters you write when of the past, that only liquor would remove. AA, you’re excited, I’m fit material myself for a with its usual discernment, asked me to think padded cell.” this over: “God grant me the serenity to accept Another time I was wavering on the things I cannot change, courage to change edge, and AA sensed it. A special delivery air things I can, and wisdom to know the mail arrived: “Don’t talk so negatively about this difference.” That impressed me profoundly. thing taking more than you’ve got. I thought the From there on, a message would arrive Marines never stopped fighting.” That one each day, with something like this: “When ‘the snapped me back, for I’m proud to have been a feeling’ torments you, eat sweets. It’s good Marine. medicine. Alcoholics are used to great quantities The letters brought results where all else of sugar in their systems, and when you stop had failed, because AA talked my language: drinking you cut off that supply.” they too were alkies. Kindly argument by my son The battle was not won immediately. I and daughter formerly had made me ashamed had two slips. But AA and the doctor agreed that and angry with myself; but then, unable to find a a slip is not uncommon at the start, and that way out, I would drink harder in a desperate gave me heart. They pointed out -that it may be attempt to forget it all. Acquaintances and precipitated by any emotional crisis; so I learned friends had urged me to swear off, to “be a to avoid both controversy and excitement. man.” They seemed unable to grasp the fact that Overconfidence too, I discovered, is dangerous, alcoholism is a disease, that there is no more and AA wrote that I might never be nearer my reason to censure an alcoholic than there is to first drink than when I felt absolutely certain that berate a person for breaking a leg or having I had won the fight. cardiac trouble. Recently I stumbled upon one of the The technique of AA, I discovered, was bottles I had hidden around the house. I put it not to push, or even to lead, but to walk with you away hastily. Fascination drew me back to it. I and offer you something you need–if you want swished the liquor around, held it up to the light, to accept it. There was no argument, no smelled it. I wondered if it would be possible to controversy. There was no concern, either, take one drink, and imagined myself pouring a about temperance interests; they are not tumbler half full of the liquor, filling it up with reformers. Neither are they concerned with race water and sipping it slowly to savor the or creed. They do, however, feel it highly fragrance and satisfying sharpness. I grew taut important that you have some belief in a power as a violin string. greater that yourself, because this fact of belief, But then the mailman came with a long or something to lean on, makes the fight easier. AA letter. At the end was this amazing “What the hell’s the use of all this?” I paragraph: “Some AAs, after the pressure has asked in one of my letters. been lifted, think: ‘Well, maybe now I could take “You’ll eventually get the answer to that,” just a drink or two and stop there.’ If you ever AA replied. “You’ve got a lot of years left. Why come to this stage, before you take that first not make them worth while? There are other drink just sit down and remember! That’s all! people like yourself you can help, and there’s Remember! One drink is too much, a thousand nothing like helping others in order to forget not enough.” yourself.”

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One day I began thinking about a trip to The New York companionship strength- New York. My AA correspondent encourage me. ened my shield and I was given a keener insight People in the AA office were as curious to see into the importance of the spiritual approach. I me as I was to see them. am not a religious man, but in the course of my In our conversations the office people return from the half-world of alcoholism I had told me that I will always be an alcoholic. Most begun to perceive the intervention of some persons eventually lose the desire to drink and outside force working in my behalf. This came to are not tempted in the presence of liquor. But I me slowly, during long solitary walks in the am one of those unfortunate few who are country. I began to feel that life must have some constantly in danger. I cannot look at liquor, design; s o I tried to pray to whatever may be smell it, even think about it. It sets that inner, back of all this. involuntary compulsion astir. If I were to slip The change which AA helps a man now, I -feel certain I could not fight this battle accomplish is close to the religious experience over again. Drink to me means death. of conversion. Indeed, it is the same if it is AA national headquarters have records genuine and lasts. I see now that most failures to prove that 50 percent of those who come to result from lack of acceptance of some power AA with a sincere desire to stop drinking do so greater than oneself. I have found added immediately; another 25 percent stop after one encouragement not only from everyone in AA or two slips; and of the remaining 25 percent but my friends. Once one recovers a some fail entirely, some fail to keep in touch with constructive approach toward life, selfthe organization, and others eventually resume confidence and a belief in the future, the devil of contact and stay dry. Two types cannot be alcoholism can be conquered. I believe–and my helped by AA: halfhearted persons who merely friends assure me–that I have done it. toy with the idea of becoming dehydrated and those with brain lesions or psychoses.

Source: Reader’s Digest, January 1946

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