I was a part of life at last and in the midst of the excitement I discovered liquor.
The drive for success was on.
Men of genius conceived their best projects when drunk.
Business and financial leaders were my heroes.
I had developed a theory that most people lost money in stocks to ignorance of markets. I discovered many more reasons later on.
Drink was taking an important and exhilarating part in my life. There was loud talk in the jazz places uptown. Everyone spent in thousands and chattered in millions. Scoffers could scoff and be damned. I made a host of fair-weather friends.
… The old fierce determination to win came back.
I woke up. This had to be stopped. I could not take so much as one drink. I was through forever.
Was that crazy? I begin to wonder, for such an appalling lack of perspective seemed near being just that.
...I swayed dizzily before an open window, or the medicine cabinet where there was poison, cursing myself for a weakling.
Hydrotherapy and mild exercise helped much.
Though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill, bodily and mentally.
Surely this was the answer-self-knowledge...But it was not, for the frightful day came when I drank once more.
I had met my match.
I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence.
I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, and a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.
The door opened and he stood there, fresh skinned and glowing.
He had that starry-eyed look. Yes, the old boy was on fire all right.
Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlay all.
For myself, I had adopted those parts which seemed convenient and not too difficult; the rest I disregarded.
If there was a Devil, he seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me.
Here was something at work in a human heart, which had done the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then. Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table. He shouted great tidings.
I stood in the sunlight at last.
It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself.
Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed.
…his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself.
There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost.
I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.
I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive.
Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness.
....a peace and serenity as I had never known before. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through.
God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.
My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me.
Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead....
With us it is just like that.
I was not too well at the time, and was plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic saved the day.
I have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path that really goes somewhere; have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted...
Business and professional men have regained their standing.
An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. Our struggles with them are variously strenuous, comic, and tragic.
I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just underneath there is a deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.