|
| print this
Biography:
"Desperation Drinking"
Pat
M., New York City
(p. 509 in 2nd edition, p. 512 in
3rd edition.)
They
Lost Nearly All
"He was drinking to hold on to
his job, to hold on to his wife, to hold on to his sanity.
Finally, he was drinking to keep away those little men,
and those strange voices, and the organ music that came
out of the walls."
Pat probably joined AA and
stopped drinking about 1952.
He was born in Ireland and
came to the United States as a child. He started drinking
at the age of sixteen, but wasn't a social drinker very
long. He had blackouts, began swearing off alcohol, and
taking the morning drink quite early. He became a binge
drinker.
He thought the Army would
be a cure all, a new life. But when he returned from the
Army things were probably worse because now he had a lot
more resentments.
He married the girl he'd
left behind, who had been warned by his own mother that
he was a hopeless drunk. He stayed sober for her for nine
months but then took a drink at a party. No one had warned
him that it was the first drink that did the damage. His
drinking became desperation drinking.
Finally he hit bottom. He
knew he had come to the end of his rope and turned for help
to someone he had turned his back on for years: God. He
then went to the doctor who had treated him for DTs. The
doctor sent him to the Alanon House on the West Side. There
he was introduced to A.A. He found friendship and understanding
he needed, he learned how to pray honestly.
Pat didn't take the 10th
step inventory at night. He took it continuously during
the day. At the time he wrote his story he had not had a
drink since his first meeting.
For him, A.A. had become
a way of life.
|
GO
BACK
GO
BACK