Page 426 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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ACCEPTANCE WAS THE ANSWER 415
holic himself and was sending me to find out about
A.A. But it quickly became obvious that he had this
childish notion instead: If he could get me to go to
enough meetings while in the hospital, I would con-
tinue to go after he let me out. So, for no better
reason than to fool him, I asked Frank to take me to a
meeting every night. And Frank did set me up for a
meeting every night except Friday, when he thought
he might have a date with his girl friend. “That’s a
devil of a way to run an organization,” I thought, and
I reported Frank to the psychiatrist, who didn’t seem
perturbed; he just got someone else to take me on
Fridays.
Eventually the psychiatrist discharged me from the
hospital, and Max and I began going to meetings our-
selves. Right from the start, I felt that they weren’t
doing anything for me, but they sure were helping
Max. We sat in the back and talked only to each other.
It was precisely a year before I spoke at an A.A. meet-
ing. Although we enjoyed the laughter in the early
days, I heard a lot of things that I thought were stupid.
I interpreted “sober” as meaning “drinking but not
being drunk.” When a big, healthy-looking young fel-
low stood up there and said, “I’m a success today if I
don’t drink today,” I thought, “Man, I’ve got a thou-
sand things to do today before I can brag about not
taking a drink, for God’s sake!” Of course, I was still
drinking at the time. (Today there is absolutely noth-
ing in the world more important to me than my keep-
ing this alcoholic sober; not taking a drink is by far the
most important thing I do each day.)
It seemed that all they talked about at meetings was
drinking, drinking, drinking. It made me thirsty. I