Alcoholics Anonymous: Big Book by Alcoholics Anonymous

Author:Alcoholics Anonymous [Anonymous, Alcoholics]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Nonfiction, Drugs; Alcohol; Substance Abuse, Substance Abuse & Addictions, Social Issues, Alcoholics Anonymous, Self-Help, Alcoholism
ISBN: 9789562913577
Google: FodNAQAACAAJ
Publisher: Editorial Benei Noaj
Published: 2006-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

(1)

The Missing Link

He looked at everything as the cause of his unhappiness—except alcohol.

When i was eight or nine years old, life sud-

denly became very difficult. Feelings began to

emerge that I did not understand. Depression crept

into my life as I started to feel alone, even in crowded rooms. In fact, life didn’t make much sense to me at

all. It’s hard to say what sparked all of this, to pinpoint one fact or event that changed everything forever. The fact of the matter was, I was miserable from early on in my life.

It was all very confusing. I remember isolating on

the playground, watching all the other children laughing and playing and smiling, and not feeling like I

could relate at all. I felt different. I didn’t feel as if I was one of them. Somehow, I thought, I didn’t fit in.

My school marks soon reflected these feelings. My

behavior and attitude seemed to become troublesome

to everyone around me. I soon began spending more

time in the principal’s office than in the classroom. My parents, perplexed by such an unhappy son, began

having difficulties. My house was soon filled with the sounds of arguments and yelling about how to handle

me. I found that running away from home could sup-

ply me with some sort of temporary solace. Until of

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ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

course, the police would find me and bring me back to my house and my worried parents.

About that time I started seeing therapists and spe-

cialists, each with a different theory and a different solution. They conducted special tests and interviews

designed to get to the root of my troubles, and came

to the conclusion that I had a learning disability and was depressed. The psychiatrist started me on some

medication, and the problems in school started to

clear up. Even some of the depression began to ease

up for a bit. However, something still seemed funda-

mentally wrong.

Whatever the problem, I soon found what appeared

to be the solution to everything. At age fifteen, I traveled with my family to Israel. My brother was to be

bar mitzvahed atop Masada. There was no legal drink-

ing age, so I found it quite easy to walk into a bar and order a drink. New Year’s Eve fell in the middle of the trip, and since the Jewish calendar celebrates a different New Year than the Gregorian calendar, the only

celebration was being held in the American sector of

a university. I got drunk for the first time that night. It changed everything.

A stop at a local bar began the evening. I ordered a

beer from the waitress and as I took the first sip,

something was immediately different. I looked around

me, at the people drinking and dancing, smiling and

laughing, all of whom were much older than I.

Suddenly, I somehow felt I belonged. From there, I

made my way to the university, where I found hun-

dreds of other Americans celebrating New Year’s Eve.

Before the night was over, I had started a fight with a number of college-aged drunken fellows and returned

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to the hotel stinking drunk and riddled with bruises.

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