I share below the account of an alcoholic lawyer from a book written in 1963 by one Don Tracy. Though this description of an alcoholic's dilemma is fictional, it rings true for many battling the disease of alcohol addiction. It also reminds us that this disease does not discriminate; it afflicts lawyers, teachers, politicians, scientists, doctors and all those professions we would think immune to its lure.
For those still struggling in their battle with alcohol, there is help and hope if you'll reach out or allow others to reach out to you. Life can be wonderful again, if you'll take that first step toward recovery. Contact: Alcoholic's Anonymous
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Excerpt from Don Tracy's "The Hated One"
Waking up without a drink was the worst part of the nightmare. My watch showed me it was only a few minutes past midnight but in Lindsley there was no place to buy even a glass of beer after eleven. I got up off the damp bed and groped my way through the darkness to the window.
I sat in the old upholstered chair in my shorts, lit one of the cigarettes I'd gotten out of the machine downstairs and got ready to sweat it out. It was a good night for it; the temperature must have been at least eighty-five and the humidity was even worse.
I was in the Princess Hotel, down by the Seaboard station.
I'd come to the Princess after the air-conditioned Lindsley and the Floridian had regretted that all their rooms were occupied, booked solid for as far ahead as the eye could see.
I'd intended to nap for an hour or so to get my strength back, bathe, shave and drive to get some liquor.
I'd inteded to do all these things, but when a diesel freight's droning horn woke me it was pitch dark and I stripped off my sodden, smelly clothes and went back to sleep.
"Now I faced those terrible hours when every place a man can get a transfusion of life-giving alcohol is closed; when clocks tick thunderously as their hands stand still; when all the devils in Hell romp through a man's guts and along every nerve of his body there crawls a nonexistent bug.
For those still struggling in their battle with alcohol, there is help and hope if you'll reach out or allow others to reach out to you. Life can be wonderful again, if you'll take that first step toward recovery. Contact: Alcoholic's Anonymous
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Excerpt from Don Tracy's "The Hated One"
Waking up without a drink was the worst part of the nightmare. My watch showed me it was only a few minutes past midnight but in Lindsley there was no place to buy even a glass of beer after eleven. I got up off the damp bed and groped my way through the darkness to the window.
I sat in the old upholstered chair in my shorts, lit one of the cigarettes I'd gotten out of the machine downstairs and got ready to sweat it out. It was a good night for it; the temperature must have been at least eighty-five and the humidity was even worse.
I was in the Princess Hotel, down by the Seaboard station.
I'd come to the Princess after the air-conditioned Lindsley and the Floridian had regretted that all their rooms were occupied, booked solid for as far ahead as the eye could see.
I'd intended to nap for an hour or so to get my strength back, bathe, shave and drive to get some liquor.
I'd inteded to do all these things, but when a diesel freight's droning horn woke me it was pitch dark and I stripped off my sodden, smelly clothes and went back to sleep.
"Now I faced those terrible hours when every place a man can get a transfusion of life-giving alcohol is closed; when clocks tick thunderously as their hands stand still; when all the devils in Hell romp through a man's guts and along every nerve of his body there crawls a nonexistent bug.
These are the hours when some drunks scream and sob and sometimes throw themselves out of windows. Others sit for a few seconds on one chair before moving to another while we shiver and take a few puffs off a cigarette before grinding it out and lighting another, searching for the one that will bring the miracle of peace. We shudder and our hearts pound and we know we're going to die and we don't care - anything, anything, to escape. And then eventually dawn comes to most of us and ages after dawn some bar or liquor store opens and we can begin a new day.
I don't know what purpose would be served by describing those hours from a couple of minutes past midnight until the eight o'clock sun began blazing hot and vicious off the tin roof of the Seaboard freight depot below my window. Suffice it to say that it was rough, and what made it worse was the gradually shattering realization that when morning finally did arrive no bar or liquor store would open in Lindsley; I wouldn't be able to get the drink or the botttle that would take me off the rack until I somehow got over the county line.
Then as the hours passed came a new, frightening thought. Even if I did drive miles and find a saloon or a package store, I still couldn't drink. Not without surrendering my last hope of someday being able to look back and say: This one thing was good.
I'd gotten myself involved in the messy case of Coralee Preston by a trusting old woman who had aroused a wild hallucination in my boozy mind. I'd staggered into a situation that any sane man would have fled from. Now I was committed to go through with it against hopeless odds or run to some safe hole from which I could never emerge. Worst of all, if I ran I'd leave nothing for anybody to remember about Francis MacWhalen Coombs except this one last laughable failure, this final drunken posturing.
At some time during those early morning hours I irrevocably saddled myself with the responsibility of staying alive and sober enough to do my poor best to help my client, Hattie May's daughter, the scowling, impenitent Coralee, who'd told me to be sure to bring her filter cigarettes.
When it was light enough for me to dare to move about my room without blundering into deep shadows full of frightful menace, I went into the bathroom and showered.
I don't know what purpose would be served by describing those hours from a couple of minutes past midnight until the eight o'clock sun began blazing hot and vicious off the tin roof of the Seaboard freight depot below my window. Suffice it to say that it was rough, and what made it worse was the gradually shattering realization that when morning finally did arrive no bar or liquor store would open in Lindsley; I wouldn't be able to get the drink or the botttle that would take me off the rack until I somehow got over the county line.
Then as the hours passed came a new, frightening thought. Even if I did drive miles and find a saloon or a package store, I still couldn't drink. Not without surrendering my last hope of someday being able to look back and say: This one thing was good.
I'd gotten myself involved in the messy case of Coralee Preston by a trusting old woman who had aroused a wild hallucination in my boozy mind. I'd staggered into a situation that any sane man would have fled from. Now I was committed to go through with it against hopeless odds or run to some safe hole from which I could never emerge. Worst of all, if I ran I'd leave nothing for anybody to remember about Francis MacWhalen Coombs except this one last laughable failure, this final drunken posturing.
At some time during those early morning hours I irrevocably saddled myself with the responsibility of staying alive and sober enough to do my poor best to help my client, Hattie May's daughter, the scowling, impenitent Coralee, who'd told me to be sure to bring her filter cigarettes.
When it was light enough for me to dare to move about my room without blundering into deep shadows full of frightful menace, I went into the bathroom and showered.
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