She hid her bottles in the clothes hampers and in
the dresser drawers. She realized what she was be-
coming. In A.A., she discovered she had lost nothing
and had found everything.
MY STORY HAPPENS to be a
particular kind of woman's story; the story of the woman who drinks at home. I had to be
at home. I had two babies. When alcohol took me over, my bar was my kitchen, my living
room, my bedroom, the back bathroom, and the two hampers.
At one time, the admission that I was and am an alcoholic meant shame, defeat, and
failure to me. But in the light of the new understanding that I have found in A.A., I
have been able to interpret that defeat, and that failure, and that shame, as seeds of
victory. Because it was only through feeling defeat and feeling failure, the inability
to cope with my life and with alcohol, that I was able to surrender and accept the fact
that I had this disease, and that I had to learn to live again without
alcohol.
I was never a very heavy social drinker. But during a period of particular stress and
strain about thirteen years ago, I resorted to alcohol in my home, alone, as a means of
temporary release, as a means of getting a little extra sleep.
I had problems. We all have
them, and I thought a little brandy or a little wine now and then could certainly hurt
no one. I don't believe, when I started, that I even had in mind the thought that I was
drinking. I had to sleep, I had to clear my mind
and free it from worry, and I had to relax. But from one or two
drinks of an afternoon or evening, my intake mounted, and mounted fast. It wasn't long
before I was drinking all day. I had to have that wine. The only incentive that I had,
toward the end, for getting dressed in the morning was to get out and get supplies to
help me get my day started. But the only thing that got started was my
drinking.
I should have realized that alcohol was getting hold of me when I started to become
secretive in my drinking. I began to have to have supplies on hand for the people who
"might come in." And of course a half empty bottle wasn't worth keeping, so I finished
it up and naturally had to get more in right away for the people who "might come in
unexpectedly." But I was always the unexpected person who had to finish the bottle. I
couldn't go to one wine store and look the man honestly in the face and buy a bottle, as
I used to do when I had parties and entertained and did normal drinking. I had to give
him a story and ask him the same question over and over again, "Well, now, how many will
that bottle serve?" I wanted him to be sure that I wasn't the one who was going to drink
the whole bottle.
I had to hide, as a great many people in A.A. have had to do. I did my hiding in the
hampers and in my dresser drawers. When we begin to do things like that with alcohol,
something's gone wrong. I needed it,
and I knew I was drinking too much, but I wasn't conscious of the
fact that I should stop. I kept on. My home at that time was a place to mill around in.
I wandered from room to room, thinking, drinking, drinking, thinking. And the mops would
get out, the vacuum would get out, everything would get out, but nothing would get done.
Toward five o'clock, helter-skelter, I'd get everything put away and try to get supper
on the table, and after supper I'd finish the job up and knock myself out.
I never knew which came first, the thinking or the drinking. If I could only stop
thinking, I wouldn't drink. If I could only stop drinking, maybe I wouldn't think. But
they were all mixed up together, and I was all mixed up inside. And yet I had to have
that drink. You know the deteriorating effects, the disintegrating effects of chronic
wine-drinking. I cared nothing about my personal appearance. I didn't care nothing about
my personal appearance. I didn't care what I looked like, I didn't care what I did. To
me, taking a bath was just being in a place with a bottle where I could drink in
privacy. I had to have it with me at night, in case I woke up and needed that drink.
How I ran my home, I don't know. I went on, realizing what I was becoming, hating myself
for it, bitter, blaming life, blaming everything else but the fact that I should turn
about and do something about my drinking. Finally I didn't care, I was beyond caring. I
just wanted to live to a certain age, carry through with what I felt was my job with the
children, and after that—no matter. Half a mother was better than no mother at all.
I needed that alcohol. I couldn't live without it. I couldn't do anything without it.
But there came a
point when I could no longer live with it. And that came after a
three-weeks' illness of my son. The doctor prescribed brandy for the boy to help him
through the night when he coughed, a teaspoon of brandy. Well, of course that was all I
needed—to switch from wine to brandy for three weeks. I knew nothing about alcoholism or
the D.T.'s, but when I woke up on this last morning of my son's illness, I taped the
keyhole on my door because "everyone was out there." I paced back and forth in the
apartment with the cold sweats. I screamed on the telephone for my mother to get up
there; something was going to happen; I didn't know what, but if she didn't get there
quick, I'd split wide open. I called my husband up and told him to come home.
After that I sat for a week, a body in a chair, a mind off in space. I thought the two
would never get together. I knew that alcohol and I had to part. I couldn't live with it
any more. And yet, how was I going to live without it? I didn't know. I was bitter,
living in hate. The very person who stood with me through it all and has been my
greatest help was the person that I turned against, my husband. I also turned against my
family, my mother. The people who would have come to help me were just the people I
would have nothing to do with.
Nevertheless, I began to try to live without alcohol. But I only succeeded in fighting
it. And believe me, an alcoholic cannot fight alcohol. I had all kinds of reasons for my
drinking. I had problems. I was a woman, tied to my home. What I needed was a change,
mental relaxation, getting out and doing something. I thought that was my answer. I said
to
my husband, "I'm going to try, every free moment that I have, to get
interested in something outside, get myself over this rut I'm in." I thought I was going
out of my mind. If I didn't have a drink, I had to do something.
I became one of the most active women in the community, what with P.T.A., other
community organizations and drives. I'd go into an organization, and it wasn't long
before I was on the committee, then I was chairman of the committee; and if I was in a
group, I'd soon be treasurer or secretary of the group. But I wasn't happy. I became a
Jekyll-and-Hyde person. As long as I worked, as long as I got out, I didn't drink. But I
had to get back to that first drink somehow. And when I took that first drink, I was off
on the usual merry-go-round. And it was my home that suffered. My husband, my children
saw the other side of me. So that didn't work.
I figured I'd be all right if I could find something I liked to do. So when the children
were in school from nine to three, I started up a nice little business and was fairly
successful in it. But not happy. Because I found that everything I turned to became a
substitute for drink. And when all of life is a substitute for drink, there's no
happiness, no peace. I still had to drink; I still needed that drink. Mere cessation
from drinking is not enough for an alcoholic while the need for that drink goes on. I
switched to beer. I had always hated beer, but now I grew to love it, bottle after
bottle of it, warm or cold. So that wasn't my answer either.
I went to my doctor again. He knew what I was
doing, how I was trying. I said, "I can't find my middle road in
life. I can't find it. It's either all work, or I drink." He said, "Why don't you try
Alcoholics Anonymous?" I was willing to try anything. I was licked. For the second time,
I was licked. The first time was when I knew I couldn't live with alcohol. But this
second time, I found I couldn't live normally without it, and I was licked worse than
ever.
The fellowship I found in A.A. enabled me to face my problem honestly and squarely. I
couldn't do it among my relatives, I couldn't do it among my friends. No one likes to
admit that they're a drunk, that they can't control this thing. But when we come into
A.A., we can face our problem honestly and openly. I went to closed meetings and open
meetings. And I took everything that A.A. had to give me. Easy does it, first things
first, one day at a time. It was at that point that I reached surrender. I heard one
very ill woman say that she didn't believe in the surrender part of the A.A. program. My
heavens! Surrender to me has meant the ability to run my home, to face my
responsibilities as they should be faced, to take life as it comes to me day by day, and
work my problems out. That's what surrender has meant to me. I surrendered once to the
bottle, and I couldn't do these things. Since I gave my will over to A.A., whatever A.A.
has wanted of me I've tried to do to the best of my ability. When I'm asked to go out on
a call, I go. I'm not going; A.A. is leading me there. A.A. gives us
alcoholics direction into a way of life without the need for alcohol. That life for me
is lived one day at a time, letting the problems of the future rest with the future.
When the time comes to solve them, God will give me strength for
that day.
I had been brought up to believe in God, but I know that until I found this A.A.
program, I had never found or known faith in the reality of God, the reality of His
power that is now with me in everything I do.