Please Be Kind to Drunken Drunks

ON a Monday in October, 1948, I embarked on the final bender that brought me into AA. Since 1931 I had suffered from chronic blackouts and my benders were usually the same. I would start each morning in a gin mill and stay until it closed at 4 A.M. However, around eleven each evening I would go out, buy a quart of whiskey, secure a room in a neighborhood flea bag, leave the whiskey in the room and then return to the bar until it closed. While I was on one of these bouts I would not return home for days or even weeks.