The Salesman
Personal Stories From The First Edition
I LEARNED to drink in a workmanlike manner when the law of the land said
I couldn't and what started out as a young man's fun became a habit which
in its later existence laid me by the heels many a time and almost
finished my career.
'Teen years were uneventful for me. I was raised on a farm but saw little
future in farming. I was going to be a business man, took a business
college course, acquired a truck and stand in the city market of a nearby
town, and started off. I brought produce from my folks' place and sold it
to city customers and there were plenty of them with bulging pocketbooks.
Back of me was the normal life of a farmer's son. My parents were
unusually understanding people. My father was a life-long comrade till
the day of his death. The business theory I had learned in college was
now being practiced and I was equipped beyond many of my competitors to
be materially successful. Soon I had expanded until I was represented in
all the city markers and also in another city. In 1921 we had the
forerunner of the later depression and my customers disappeared.
Successively I had to close my stands and was finally wiped out
altogether. Being a young man of affairs, I had begun to do a little
business and social drinking and now with time on my hands, I seemed to
do more of it.
Following a year of factory work, during which time I got married, I got
a job with a grocer as clerk. My grocer-employer was an expert wine-maker
and I had free access to his cellar. The work was monotonous in the
extreme, behind a counter all day when I had been used to driving around
attending to business, meeting people and building for what was a great
future. I mark, too, as a milestone, the death of my father, whom I
missed greatly.
I kept hitting the wine, with just occasional use of liquor. Leaving the
grocery I went back into the produce business and out among people, went
back to liquor again and got my first warning to quit before it got me.
I was anxious to get with a concern which would give me an opportunity to
build up again, and landed a job with a nationally known biscuit company.
I was assigned to a good business region, covering several important
towns, and almost at once began to earn real money. In a very short time
I was the star salesman of the company, winning a reputation as a
business-getter. Naturally I drank with my better customers for on my
route I had many stops where that was good business. But I had things
rather well under control and in the early days on this job I seldom
wound up in my day's work with any visible effects of drinking.
I had a private brewery at home which was now producing 15 gallons a week
most of which I drank myself. It is typical of the attitude I had toward
alcohol at that time that, when a fire threatened total destruction of my
home and garage, I rushed to the cellar and rescued my most precious
possessions-a keg of wine and all the beer I could carry, and got pretty
indignant when my better half suggested that I had better get some of the
needed effects out of the house before it burned down.
My home-brewing gradually became a bore and I began to carry home bottles
of powerful bootleg whiskey, starting with half a pint as my daily
after-supper allowance. For a time I kept on the job spacing my drinks en
route and very little of them in the morning hours. I just couldn't wait
until I got home to drink. In a very short time I became an all-day
drinker.
Chain-store managers and quantity buyers were both my guests and hosts
and every now and then we had prodigious parties. Finally, in a
re-organization shake-up resulting in new district managers with a pretty
poor territory deal for me, I gave the company two weeks notice and quit.
I had bought a home but in the year and a half following I had little
income and finally lost that. I became satisfied with just enough to live
on and buy the liquor I wanted. Then I landed in the hospital when my car
was hit by a truck. My car was ruined entirely. That loss and my injuries
plus the recriminations of my wife sort of sobered me up. When I got out
of the hospital I stayed sober for six weeks and had made up my mind to
quit.
I went back in the business where I had been a successful salesman, but
with another company. When I started with this concern I talked things
over with my wife and made her some very solemn promises. I wasn't going
to touch another drop of liquor.
By this tie prohibition was a thing of the past and saloons and clubs
where I was well known as a good customer and good spender became my
patrons. I rolled up business until I was again a star, but after the
first four months on the new job I began to slip. It is not unusual in
the drinking experience of any man that after a time of sobriety he comes
to the conclusion that he "can handle it." In no time at all liquor again
became the most important thing in my life and every day became like
another, steady drinking in every saloon and club en route. I would get
to headquarters every night in a top-heavy condition, just able to
maintain equilibrium. I began to get warnings and was repeatedly fired
and taken on again. My wife's parents died about this time in unfortunate
circumstances. All my troubles seemed to be piling up on me and liquor
was the only refuge I knew.
Some nights I wouldn't go home at all and when I did go home I was
displeased when my wife had supper ready and equally angry when she
didn't. I didn't want to eat at all and frequently when I underestimated
my consumption of the amount of liquor I brought home, I made extra trips
back to town to renew the supply. My morning ration when I started out
was five double whiskies before I could do any business at all. I would
go into a saloon, trembling like a leaf, tired in appearance and deathly
sick, I would down two double whiskies, fell the glow and become almost
immediately transformed. In half an hour I would be able to navigate
pretty well and start out on my route. My daily reports became almost
illegible and finally, following arrest for driving while intoxicated and
on my job at that, I got scared and stayed sober for several days. Not
long afterward I was fired for good.
My wife suggested I go to my old home in the country, which I did.
Continued drinking convinced my wife I was a hopeless case and she
entered suit for divorce. I got another job, but didn't stop drinking. I
kept on working although my physical condition was such as to have
required extensive hospitalization. For years I hadn't had a peaceful
night's sleep and never knew a clear head in the morning. I had lost my
wife, and had become resigned to going to bed some night and never waking
again.
Every drunkard has one or two friends who haven't entirely given up hope
for him, but I came to the point where I had none. That is, none but my
Mother, and she, devoted soul, had tried everything with me. Through her,
people came to me and talked, but nothing they said-some were ministers
and others good church members-helped me a particle. I would agree with
them when they were with me and as fast as they went away, I'd go after
my bottle. Nothing suggested to me seemed to offer a way out.
I was getting to a place where I wanted to quit drinking but didn't know
how. My mother heard of a doctor who had been having marked success with
alcoholics. She asked me if I'd like to talk to him and I agreed to go
with her.
I had known, of course, of the various cures and after we had discussed
the matter of my drinking fairly thoroughly, the doctor suggested that I
go into the local hospital for a short time. I was very skeptical, even
after the doctor hinted there was more to his plan than medical
treatment. He told me of several men whom I knew who had been relieved
and invited me to meet a few of them who got together every week. I
promised I would be back on deck at their next meetings but told him I
had little faith in any hospital treatments. Meetings night, I was as
good as my word and met the small group. The doctor was there but somehow
I felt quite outside of the circle. The meeting was informal,
nevertheless I was little impressed. It is true they did no psalm
singing, nor was there any set ritual, but I just didn't care for
anything religious. If I had thought of God at all in the years of
drinking, it was with a faint idea that when I came to die I would sort
of fix things up with Him.
I say that the meeting did not impress me. However, I could see men who I
had known as good, hard-working drunkards apparently in their right
minds, but I just couldn't see where I came into the picture. I went
home, stayed sober for a few days, but was soon back to my regular quota
of liquor every day.
Some six months later, after a terrific binge, in a maudlin and helpless
state, I made my way to the doctor's home. He gave me medical treatment
and had me taken to the home of one of my relatives. I told him I had
come to the point where I was ready for the remedy, the only remedy. He
sent two of the members to see me. They were both kindly to me, told me
what they had gone through and how they had overcome their fight with
liquor. They made it very plain that I had to seek God, that I had to
state my case to Him and ask for help. Prayer was something I had long
forgotten. I think my first sincere utterance must have sounded pretty
weak. I didn't experience any sudden change, and the desire for liquor
wasn't taken away overnight, but I began to enjoy meeting these people
and began to exchange the liquor habit for something that has helped me
in every way. Every morning I read a part of the Bible and ask God to
carry me through the day safely.
There is another part I want to talk about-a very important part. I think
I would have had much more difficulty in getting straightened out if I
hadn't been almost immediately put to work. I don't mean getting back on
my job as a salesman. I mean something that is necessary to my continued
happiness. While I was still shakily trying to rebuild my job of selling,
the doctor sent me to see another alcoholic who was in the hospital. All
the doctor asked me to do was tell my story. I told it, not any too well
perhaps, but as simply and as earnestly as I knew how.
I've been sober several years, kept that way by submitting my natural
will to the Higher Power and that is all there is to it. That submission
wasn't just a single act, however. It became a daily duty; it had to be
that. Daily I am renewed in strength and I have never come to the point
where I have wanted to say, "Thanks, God, I think I can paddle my own
canoe now," for which I am thankful.
I have been reunited with my wife, making good in business, and paying
off debts as I am able. I wish I could find words to tell my story more
graphically. My former friends and employers are amazed and see in me a
living proof that the remedy I have used really works. I have been
fortunate to be surrounded with friends ever ready to help, but I firmly
believe any man can get the same result if he will sincerely work at it
God's way.
Contact:
The Legacy Group of Alcoholics Anonymous © 2005