March 20

March 20 – AM          Page 177-178, Doctor Bob’s Nightmare, Part I

For the benefit of those experimentally inclined, I should mention the so-called beer experiment.  When beer first came back, I thought that I was safe.  I could drink all I wanted of that.  It was harmless; nobody ever got drunk on beer.  So I filled the cellar full, with the permission of my good wife.  It was not long before I was drinking at least a case and a half a day.  I put on thirty pounds of weight in about two months, looked like a pig, and was uncomfortable from shortness of breath.  It then occurred to me that after one was all smelled up with beer nobody could tell what had been drunk, so I began to fortify my beer with straight alcohol.  Of course, the result was very bad, and that ended the beer experiment.

March 20 – PM          Page 18, There Is A Solution, Chapter 2

We hope this volume will inform and comfort those who are, or who may be affected.  There are many.
Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his situation without reserve.  Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the doctor.
But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours.  Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.