My Life Story - by Tom M. A Recovering Alcoholic

Reflecting back on the question of when I really started drinking alcohol, I remembered a particular incident that today seems wrong for a small boy, but which at the time seemed perfectly normal.  One hot August afternoon when I was seven, I really wanted a vanilla ice cream covered with orange sherbet.  They sold for only five cents, but, I did not have a nickel.  I only had three pennies.  I knew my dad had empty beer bottles in the basement for which I could get a penny a bottle refund at the store.  I only needed two empty beer bottles to have enough money for the ice cream.  I went to the basement to get the two empty bottles.  But, I could find none.  I thought of emptying two full bottles into the toilet so that I would have two empty ones to take to the store.  But, remembering my dad''s lectures on not being wasteful and that confiscated liquor could be destroyed by drinking it and urinating it down the drain instead of pouring it directly down the drain as required by law, I promptly opened and drank the two bottles down.  The beer was bitter.  It was old beer, the shared spoils of an unredeemed official liquor raid.  I had a slight buzz on and I liked that feeling.  I went upstairs to the garage, jumped on my bicycle and rode to the corner grocery six blocks away with my three pennies and two empty bottles.  I bought my ice cream and went outside the store to eat it.  The orange sherbet covering the vanilla ice cream did not taste like orange.  It tasted bitter from the bitter beer I had drunk.  But, I enjoyed the ice cream anyway.  I rode home feeling good.  I had gotten my ice cream and still had a bit of a buzz from the two beers.  I did not even think I had done anything wrong.  I was a little boy who wanted ice cream and had done what he had to do to get it.  At that time, I did not drink beer regularly but it was there if I had wanted it.

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Nine months before I left Saudi Arabia, I took a vacation to India.  I was looking forward to being able to drink in restaurants and bars without a limit.  Upon arrival in Bombay, I found that there was an election holiday, however, which meant that no liquor was for sale until after the election was over.  The election time was for three days.  But, the hotel where I stayed was helpful and made an exception for foreigners.  They sold beer as long as it was consumed with meals.  I ate some big meals taking a long time and drinking a number of beers.  That helped, but it was not enough alcohol.  I went alone for a walk in the early afternoon.  The streets were crowded.  Near the hotel I saw a corpulent Indian baker standing in front of his bakery.  I reasoned, like many alcoholics that a fat and jovial man in a country of skinny dower faced individuals meant that he not only knew where to obtain the enjoyable things of life but also enjoyed them frequently himself.  I went up to him and said, "Can you provide me assistance in obtaining a bottle of liquor?"  He said, "Of course."  He immediately reached out and grabbed the next man walking by on the sidewalk by the shoulder, told the man of my needs, and told me to follow him."  I followed the man down the street about fifty feet to where he turned left into a dark and narrow alleyway.  He went straight for a hundred feet, turned right and went for a hundred feet or so and then turned left again.  There were sleeping cots with occupants next to the walls under the roof overhang on both sides of the alleyway.  Then he went up one flight of stairs to what happened to be a by-the-drink bar.  I should have been scared going into that alleyway with a complete stranger.  But, I had an urgent need to buy a bottle of liquor and nothing was going to stop me.  I was the only foreigner in that alleyway and bar.  But, my determination to go to any lengths to get a bottle was over powering.