IT SEEMS to me that I never did do
things normally. When I learned to dance I had to go dancing every night in the week if
possible; when I worked or studied I wanted no interruptions or distractions. Wherever I
worked I wanted to be the highest paid man in the place or I was irritated; and of course
when I drank I could never seem to stop until I was saturated. I was usually hard to get
along with as a boy; if the others wouldn't play my way I'd go home.
The town we lived in when I was a child was rather new and raw, peopled largely by
immigrants who seemed to be constantly getting married with free drinks and eats for anybody
who cared to come. We kids usually managed to get to these celebrations, and although
supposed to have soda pop we could get ourselves one or two beers. With this sort of
background and more money than was good for me, it was fairly easy to start getting drunk
before I was sixteen.
After I left home I earned rather decent salaries but was never satisfied with my position,
salary, or the treatment accorded me by my employer. I very seldom stayed on one job for
more than six months until I was married at the age of 28, at which time I had already begun
to lose jobs because of my drinking. Whenever things went wrong I knew that a few drinks
would make everything rosy, my fears, doubts and worries
would vanish and I would always promise myself that the next time I
would stop short of getting plastered. Somehow things seldom worked out that way though.
I was irritated by the efforts of so many doctors, ministers, lawyers, employers, relatives
and friends who remonstrated with me what I was up against. I'd fall down, get up, work a
while, get my debts paid (at least the most pressing ones) drink moderately for a few days
or weeks, but eventually get myself so messed up in tanglefoot that I'd lose another job. In
one year (1916) I quit two jobs because I thought I'd be discharged anyhow and was fired
outright from five more, which is more jobs than many men have in a lifetime. Had I remained
sober, any one of them would have led to advancement because they were with growing
companies and in my chosen field of engineering.
After begin discharged for the fifth time that year, I drank more than ever, cadging drinks
and meals where I could, and running up a large rooming-house account. My brother took me
home and my folks talked me into going to a sanitarium for thirty days. This place was
operated by a physician at the time. The doctor did his best, saw that I got into good
physical condition, tried to straighten out the mental quirks he thought partly responsible
for my drinking, and I left with the firm resolve never to drink again.
Before I left the sanitarium I answered an advertisement for an engineer in a small Ohio
town and after an interview, obtained the position. In three days after
leaving the sanitarium I had a job I liked at a satisfactory salary in a
small town with basic living costs (board, room and laundry) amounting only to about 15% of
my salary. I was all set, sober, working in a congenial atmosphere for a firm that had more
profitable business that they knew what to do with. I made some beautiful plans. I could
save enough in a few years to complete my formal education and there were no saloons in the
town to trip me up. So what? So at the end of the week I was drunk again for no particular
reason at all that I could understand. In about three months I was o ut of a job again, but
in the meantime two things of major importance had happened. I had fallen in love and war
had been declared.
I had learned my lesson. I knew definitely that I couldn't take even one drink. I wanted to
get married so I planned very earnestly to get another job, stay sober, and save some money.
I went to Pittsburgh on Sunday, called on a manufacturer of rolling -mill equipment and on
Monday, got a position and went to work. I was first paid at the end of the second week, was
drunk before the end of the day and couldn't be bothered with going to work the next Monday.
Why did I take that first drink? I honestly don't know. Anyhow I nearly went crazy that
summer and really developed some sort of mental disturbance. The night clerk of the small
hotel where I was staying saw me go about three in the morning in pajamas and slippers and
had a policeman take me back into my room. I suppose he was used to screwy drunks or he
would have taken me to jail instead. I stayed there a
few days and sweated the alcohol out of my system, went to the office to
collect the balance o f my salary, paid my room rent, and found I had just enough money to
get home. So home I went, sick, broke, discouraged and despairing of ever attaining a
normal, happy life.
After two or three weeks of idleness at home, I obtained a subordinate position with a
former employer, doing the lowest grade of drafting work on an hourly basis. I kept
reasonably sober several months, went to see my fiancee one or two weekends, was advanced
rapidly in salary and responsibility, had a date set for the wedding and then inadvertently
learned that one of the men working under my direction was receiving about forty dollars
more per month than I was, which burnt me up to such an extent I quit after an argument,
took my money, packed my personal effects, left them at the corner drug store, and went
downtown and got plastered. Knowing that I would be greeted with tears, sorrowful sympathy
and more grief when I got home, I stayed away until I was again destitute.
I was really worried sick about my drinking so father again advanced the money for
treatment. This time I took a three-day cure and left with the firm resolve never to drink
again, got a better position then I'd had before and actually did keep sober for several
months, saved some money, paid my debts and again made plans to get married. But the desire
for a drink was with me constantly after the first week or two, and the memory of how sick I
had been from liquor and the agonies of the treatment I had undergone faded into the
background. I had only begun to restore the confidence of
my associates, family, friends and myself before I was off again,
without any excuse this time. The wedding was again postponed and it looked very much as
though it would never take place. My employer did not turn me loose but I was in another
nice jam nevertheless. After considerable fumbling around mentally as to what to do I went
back to the three-day cure for the second time.
After this treatment I got along a little better, was married in the spring of 1919 and did
very little drinking for several years. I got along very well with my work, had a happy home
life, but when away from home with little likelihood of being caught at it, I'd go on a mild
binge. The thought of what would happen if my wife caught me drinking served to keep me
reasonably straight for several years. My work became increasingly more important. I had
many outside interests and drinking became less of a factor in my life, but I did continue
to tipple some during out-of-town trips and it was because of this tendency that things
finally became all snarled up at home.
I was sent to New York on business and later stopped at a night club where I had been drunk
before. I certainly must have been very tight and it is quite likely that I was "Mickey
Finned" for I woke up about noon the next day in my hotel without a cent. I had to borrow
money to get home on but didn't start to bother to start back till several days later. When
I got there I found a sick child, a distracted wife and had lost another job paying $7,000 a
year. This, however, was not the worst of it. I must have given my business card to one of
the girls
at the night club for she started to send me announcements of another
clip-joint where she was employed and writing me long hand "come on" notes, one of which
fell into my wife's hands. I'll leave what happened after that to the reader's imagination.
I went back into the business of getting and losing jobs and eventually got to the point
where I didn't seem to have any sense of responsibility to myself or to my family. I'd miss
important family anniversaries, forget to come home for Christmas and in general wouldn't go
home until I was exhausted physically and flat broke. About four years ago I didn't come
home on Christmas Eve but arrived there about six o'clock on Christmas morning, minus the
tree I had promised to get, but with an enormous package of liquor on board. I took the
three-day cure again with the usual results but about three weeks later I went to a party
and decided a few beers wouldn't hurt me; however I didn't get back to work for three days
and a short while later had lost my job and was again at the bottom of things. My wife
obtained employment on a relief basis and I finally got straightened out with my employer
who placed me in another position in a nearby city which I also lost by the end of the year.
So it went until about a year ago when a neighbor happened to hear me trying to get into the
house and asked my wife whether I had been having some drinking difficulties. This, of
course, disturbed my wife but out neighbor was not just inquisitive. She had heard of the
work of a non-drinking doctor who was busily engaged in passing on the benefits he had
received from another
who had found the answer to his difficulties with liquor. As a result of
this my wife saw the doctor. Then I talked with him, spent a few days in a local hospital
and haven't had a drink since.
While in the hospital about twenty men called on me and told me of their experiences and the
help they had received. Of the twenty I happened to know five, three of whom I had never
seen completely sober. I became convinced then and there that if these men had learned
something that could keep them sober, I also could profit from the same knowledge. Before
leaving the hospital, two of these men, convinced of my sincerity of purpose, imparted to me
the necessary knowledge and mental tools which have resulted in my complete sobriety for
these many years, and an assurance that I need never, so long as I live, drink anything of
an alcoholic nature if I kept on the right track.
My health is better, I enjoy a fellowship which gives me a happier life than I have ever
known, and my family joins me in a daily expression of gratitude.