Alcoholics Anonymous June 25
 

Alcoholics Anonymous
June 25
The Vicious Cycle

How it finally broke a Southerner’s obstinacy and destined this salesman to start A.A. at Philadelphia.

At seventeen I entered the university, really to satisfy my father, who wanted me to study medicine there as he had. That is where I had. That is where I had my first drink and I still remember it, for every “first” drink afterwards did exactly the same trick–I could feel it go right through every bit of my body and down to my very toes. But each drink after the “first” drink seemed to become less and less effective and after three or four they all seemed like water. I was never a hilarious drunk; the more I drank the quieter I got, and the drunker I got the harder I fought to stay sober. So it is clear that I never had any fun out of drinking–I would be the soberest-seeming one in the crowd and all of a sudden I would be the drunkest. Even that first night I blacked out, which leads me to believe that I was an alcoholic from my very first drink. The first year in college I just got by in my studies, and that year I majored in poker and drinking. I refused to join any fraternity, as i wanted to be a free lance, and that year my drinking was confined to one-night stands, once or twice a week. The second year my drinking was more or less restricted to week-ends, but I was nearly kicked out for scholastic failure.

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