40. Free From Bondage

Young when she joined, this A.A. believes her seri- ous drinking was the result of even deeper defects. She here tells how she was set free.       THE MENTAL TWISTS that led up to my drinking began many years before I

39. He Who Loses His Wife

An ambitious playwright, his brains got so far ahead of his emotions that he collapsed into suicidal drinking. To learn to live, he nearly died.       I REMEMBER the day when I decided to drink myself to death quietly, without bothering

38. The Independent Blonde

The lady was blonde, self-supporting, and self-suffi-  cient. Then she began slamming doors, kicking shins,  and waking up in psychopathic wards. At last the  day came when all this changed.       I HAVE TO TELL you a little of the way

37. The Career Officer

A British officer, this Irishman—that is, until brandy “retired” him. But this proved only a temporary set- back. He survived to become a mainstay of A.A. in Eire.       I AM AN Irishman and I was forty-nine when I joined A.A.

36. Annie The Cop Fighter

For thirty-five years she fought God, man, and the  police force to keep on being what she wanted to  be—a drunk. But a telephone call from a gin mill  where she was celebrating Mother’s Day brought in  the nosey A.A.’s

35. Desperation Drinking

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

34. There’s Nothing The Matter With Me

That’s what the man said as he hocked his shoes for  the price of two bottles of Sneaky Pete. He drank  bayzo, canned heat, and shoe polish. He did a  phoney routine in A.A. for a while. And then he

33. The Prisoner Freed

After twenty years in prison for murder, he knew A.A. was the spot for him . . . if he wanted to stay on the outside.       I BEGAN DRINKING as a kid, shortly after I reached my fourteenth birthday. My

32. Promoted To Chronic

This career girl preferred solitary drinking, the blackout kind, often hoping she’d stay that way for keeps. But Providence had other ideas.       I WASN’T ALWAYS an alcoholic.  In fact it has been only within the last fifteen years that I

31. Jim’s Story

This physician, the originator of A.A.’s first colored group, but badly caught in the toils,tells of his release and of how freedom came as he worked among his own people.       I WAS BORN in a little town in Virginia in