B—— put it to me this way: “You admit you’ve made a mess of things trying to run them your way, are you willing to give up? Are you willing to say: ‘Here it is God, all mixed up. I don’t know how to un-mix it, I’ll leave it to you.’” Well, I couldn’t quite do that. I wasn’t feeling very well, and I was afraid that later when the fog wore off, I’d want to back out. So we let it rest a few days. L and B sent me to stay with some friends of theirs out of town—I’d never seen them before. The man out of that house, P—— had given up drinking three months before. After I had been there a few days, I saw that P—— and his wife had something that made them mighty hopeful and happy. But I got a little uneasy going into a perfect stranger’s home and staying day after day. I said this to P—— and his reply was: “Why, you don’t know how much it is helping me to have you here.” Was that a surprise! Always before that when I was recovering from a tailspin I’d been just a pain in the neck to everyone. So, I began to sense in a small way just what these spiritual principles were all about.
Finally I very self-consciously and briefly asked God to show me how to do what He wanted me to do. My prayer was just about as weak and helpless a thing as one could imagine, but it taught me how to open my mouth and pray earnestly and sincerely. However, I had not quite made the grade. I was full of fears, shames, and other “bug-a-boos” and two weeks later an incident occurred that put me on the toboggan again. I seemed to feel that the hurt of that incident was too great to endure without some “release.” So I forsook Spirit in favor of “spirits” and that evening I was well on the way to a long session with my old enemy “liquor.” I begged the person in whose home I was living not to let anyone know, but she, having good sense, got in touch right away with those who had helped me before and very shortly they had rallied round.
I was eased out of the mess and in a day or two I had a long talk with one of the crowd. I dragged out all my sins of commission and omission, I told everything I could think of that might be the cause of creating a fear situation, a remorse situation, or a shame situation. It was pretty terrible, I thought then, to lay myself bare that way, but I know now that such is the first step away from the precipice.
Things went very well for quite a while, then came a dull rainy day. I was alone. The weather and my self-pity began to cook up a nice dish of the blues for me. There was liquor in the house and I found myself suggesting to myself “Just one drink will make me feel so much more cheerful.” Well, I got the Bible and “Victorious Living” and sitting down in full view of the bottle of whiskey, I commenced to read. I also prayed. But I didn’t say “I must not take that drink because I owe it to so and so not to.” I didn’t say “I won’t take that drink because I’m strong enough to resist temptation.” I didn’t say “I must not” or “I will not” at all. I simply prayed and read and in half an hour I got up and was absolutely free of the urge for a drink.
It might be very grand to be able to say “Finis” right here, but I see now I hadn’t gone all the way I was intended to go. I was still coddling and nursing my two pets, self-pity and resentment. Naturally, I came a cropper once more. This time I went to the telephone (after I had taken about two drinks) and called L to tell her what I had done. She asked me to promise that I would not take another drink before someone came to me. Well, I had learned enough about truthfulness to refuse to give that promise. Had I been living after the old pattern, I would have been ashamed to call for help. In fact I should not have wanted help. I should have tried to hide the fact that I was drinking and continued until I again wound up behind the “eight ball.” I was taken back to B’s home where I stayed for three weeks. The drinking ended the morning after I got there, but the suffering continued for some time. I felt desperate and I questioned my ability to really avail myself of the help that the others had received and applied so successfully. Gradually, however, God began to clear my channels so that real understanding began to come. Then was the time when full realization and acknowledgement came to me. It was realization and acknowledgement of the fact that I was full of self-pity and resentment, realization of the fact that I had not fully given my problems to God. I was still trying to do my own fixing.
That was more than a year ago. Since then, although circumstances are no different, for there are still trials and hardships and hurts and disappointments and disillusionments, self-pity and resentment are being eliminated. In this past year I haven’t been tempted once. I have no more idea of taking a drink to aid me through a difficult period than I would if I had never drank. But I know absolutely that the minute I close my channels with sorrow for myself, or being hurt by, or resentful towards anyone, I am in horrible danger.
I know that my victory is none of my human doing. I know that I must keep myself worthy of Divine help. And the glorious thing is this: I am free, I am happy, and perhaps I am going to have the blessed opportunity of “passing it on.” I say in all reverence—Amen.
A Business Man’s Recovery
The S.S. “Falcon” of the Red D. Line, bound from New York to Maracaibo, Venezuela, glided up the bay, and docked at the wharf in the port of La Guayra on a hot tropical afternoon in early 1927. I was a passenger on that boat bound for the oil fields of Maracaibo as an employee of the X Oil Company, under a two year contract at a good salary and maintenance. There I hoped to buckle down to two years of hard work, and save some money, but above all to avoid any long, continued drinking that would interfere with my work, because that had cost me too many jobs in the past.
Not that I was going to give up drinking entirely; no, such a step would be too drastic. But down here in the oil fields with a bunch of hard working, hard drinking good fellows, I, too, would learn how to handle my liquor and not let it get the best of me again. Such an environment would surely do the trick, would surely teach me to drink moderately with the best of them and keep me away from those long, disastrous sprees. I was still young, I could make the grade, and this was my chance to do it. At last I had the real answer, and my troubles were over!
Red and I, who had become bosom shipboard companions on the way down from New York, stood at the rail watching the activity on the dock incident to getting the vessel secured alongside. Red was also on his way to Maracaibo to work for the same company, and we agreed that so long as we were going to be here overnight, we might as well go ashore together and look the town over.
Red was a swell fellow who might take a drink now and then, who might even get drunk once in a while, but he could handle his liquor and did not go to any great excesses. Thousands of other fellows like him, who have been my drinking companions from time to time, were in no way responsible for the way I drank, or what I did, or the way liquor affected me.
So off we went, Red and I, to do the town—and do it we did. After a few drinks we decided there wasn’t much else to do in town except to make a round of the “cantinas,” have a good time, get back to the ship early and get a good night’s rest. So what harm would a little drinking do now, I reasoned. Especially with one full day and two nights ahead to get over it.
We visited every “cantina” along the straggling main street of La Guayra, and feeling high, wide and handsome, Red and I decided to return to the ship. When we rolled down to the dock we found that our ship had been berthed off from the wharf about thirty feet and that it was necessary to take a tender out to her. No such ordinary method would satisfy Red and myself, so we decided to climb the stern hawser hand over hand to get on board. The flip of a coin decided that I would go first; so off I started, hand over hand up the hawser.
Now even a good experienced sailor, perfectly sober, would never attempt such a foolhardy feat and, as was to be expected, about half way up the hawser I slipped and fell into the bay with a loud splash. I remember nothing more until the next morning. The captain of the boat said to me “Young man, it is true that God looks after drunken fools and little children. You probably don’t know it, but this bay is infested with man-eating sharks and usually a man overboard is a goner. How close you
