‘Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every
alcoholic has—that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had
qualified him to drink as other men. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle.
In two months he was in a hospital, puzzled and humiliated. He tried to
regulate his drinking for a little while, making several trips to the hospital
meantime. Then, gathering all his forces, he attempted to stop altogether and
found he could not. Every means of solving his problem which money could buy
was at his disposal. Every attempt failed. Though a robust man at retirement,
he went to pieces quickly and was dead within four years.’ (Page 32 et seq.)
Every so often during my drinking I was washed up by the sea
of alcoholism onto the shore of sobriety. I didn’t choose to get washed up; the
currents are more powerful than me. After three years of being washed up but
then succumbing to the first drink, I started, in 1993, to take every action
suggested to me in AA, and I haven’t had a drink since then. Once you get
washed up on the beach, the job is to get off the beach and head inland, before
the next big wave takes you out again. If the sea takes you out again, the
currents can be so strong that you never get washed up on the shore again and
drown.