This Business of Getting Ahead

THERE is a touch of the Horatio Alger hero, I think, in every alcoholic. I don't necessarily mean that we are all out to marry the boss's daughter; some of us undoubtedly do, or have, but that is beside the point. Most alcoholics I have known, including myself, wanted to be first (we usually were when it came to getting into the bar). We wanted to get ahead, and if we didn't, well, there was nothing so rosy as the dreams of success and glory which subsequently came out of the bottle; such fantasies are the warp and woof of the alcoholic's life.