September 25

September 25 – AM          Page 129, The Family Afterward, Chapter 9

If the family cooperates, dad will soon see that he is suffering from a distortion of values.  He will perceive that his spiritual growth is lopsided, that for an average man like himself, a spiritual life which does not include his family obligations may not be so perfect after all.  If the family will appreciate that dad’s current behavior is but a phase of his development, all will be well.  In the midst of an understanding and sympathetic family, these vagaries of dad’s spiritual infancy will quickly disappear.
The opposite may happen should the family condemn and criticize.  Dad may feel that for years his drinking has placed him on the wrong side of every argument, but that now he has become a superior person with God on his side.  If the family persists in criticism, this fallacy may take a still greater hold on father.  Instead of treating the family as he should, he may retreat further into himself and feel he has spiritual justification for so doing.

September 25 – PM          Page 8-9, Bill’s Story, Chapter 1

Near the end of that bleak November, I sat drinking in my kitchen.  With a certain satisfaction I reflected there was enough gin concealed about the house to carry me through that night and the next day.  My wife was at work.  I wondered whether I dared hide a full bottle of gin near the head of our bed.  I would need it before daylight.
My musing was interrupted by the telephone.  The cheery voice of an old school friend asked if he might come over.  He was sober.  It was years since I could remember his coming to New York in that condition.  I was amazed.  Rumor had it that he had been committed for alcoholic insanity.  I wondered how he had escaped.  Of course he would have dinner, and then I could drink openly with him.  Unmindful of his welfare, I thought only of recapturing the spirit of other days.  There was that time we had chartered an airplane to complete a jag!  His coming was an oasis in this dreary desert of futility.  The very thing—an oasis!  Drinkers are like that.