You Get Me

Here are some bits and pieces from the story "Women Suffer Too."  Unlike "To The Wives" which Bill W insisted on writing himself in a pointless piece of arrogance that is alarming in its lack of perspective - I think he was probably justifiably nervous about the scorching he would have received if Lois would have been allowed to pen the chapter - this was actually written by one of our first women alcoholics. 

Here are some snippets that struck me: "That night I got very drunk, which was usual, but I remembered everything, which was very unusual."

The last day I drank alcohol - Easter Sunday in the year of our Lord 1987 - I drank a case of beer and experienced no relief.  Not even a momentary release from the fear and anxiety that was eating me alive.  I thought: "Uh-oh.  This is bad.  This is VERY bad."

"Headstrong and willful, I rushed from pleasure to pleasure, and found the returns diminishing to the vanishing point.  It no longer gave me pleasure - it merely dulled the pain - but I had to have it."

"I had been hypersensitive, shy, idealistic.  My inability to accept the harsh realities of life had resulted in a disillusioned cynic, clothed in a protective armor against the world's misunderstanding."

A disillusioned cynic misunderstood by the world.  That is SO great a description.  You don't understand!  No one understands how special I am, how put upon I am!  I coulda been a contendah!

"This group of freaks and bums."  Describing the first meeting she went to.  Not too far off even today.  I mean have you looked around at the people sitting in your favorite meeting lately?  Whew.

". . . I rarely left my private world of books and dreams.  Long-time escapists.  The feeling of impending disaster . . . "

". . . I am peculiarly qualified, as a fellow-sufferer to give aid and comfort to those who have stumbled and fallen over this business of meeting life."

One of the great realizations for me was that I couldn't bullshit any of the guys who were talking to me early on.  They got it.  They did it, too.  Many of us are swept away with the feeling that we had come home.