A Tall, Grey-headed Man

In the summer of 1964 I had a home in White Plains, New York, and worked for a major chemical company in New York City. Spending my time in Brussels, Belgium, I was trying to sell a beer concentration process to European brewers and stay sober at the same time. My first AA meeting had been in August 1962, and I'd spent three weeks in a first-class treatment program. In spite of faithful attendance at meetings and exposure to a lot of excellent AA, I hadn't made the final commitment. The need to drink periodically was still compulsive.