WHAT CAUSES A SLIP? WRITTEN JULY 1973

Did I ever get a shock recently! I almost had a slip. (back to drinking). After four years of sobriety I felt I had it beaten. Cocky andf confident, I knew I had it beaten, no need to ever worry about having a drink, no desire or inclination to, apart from the odd hankering for a cold beer on a hot day, or something to cool me out after an especially hard day.

I figured these were the only hazards an alcoholic really had to cope with after the first year. How wrong I was!

It all happened a short time ago at a cocktail and business meeting type affair to introduce a new Canadian company to the press and public; a strictly public promotion affair. (Working for the bank I go to countless affairs where booze is served as a mattger of course, under a sort of cocktail party atmosphere, and I suppose I have been to literally dozens of these affairs and have had no problems). This particular event was at the Royal York roof garden, and the elevator ride up started me feeling a bit edgy as, since I quit drinking, elevators and subways haven't been my favorite places, although I am almost over it now.

I got there early, and went right over to the bar for my usual coke, which I carry for the duration of the event, mostly from habit I think, and it keeps people from bothering me about having a drink, they see that I am well looked after. In most cases, if they see a glass in my hand they assume I am drinking and there is no need to go into the fact that I don't drink, and no long explanations are needed.

Gradually the room filled with all sorts of people, celebrities, hangers on, and the such. It was then that I felt the queerest mood come over me. All I could focus on was the clinking of the glases, the bright colours, the noise and, most of all the bar. It drew me like a magnet. I felt I was in another dimension, all the past and future was blacked out.

I was caught in the midst of a seething noisy crowd and I felt trapped, and smothered. I don't know if it was fear, or somewhat of a hypnotic effect, but the feeling was that I was absolutely caught up in it, and the bar was the focal point of everything.

A drink became the most important thing in life to me at that instant. I could feel the bar drawing me over. Nothing else mattered, not my family or my job or life itself. I was completely, physically and mentally craving a drink. It was the fountain that would envelope me and solve all my problems. Mother womb. No responsibility or pressures, no need to struggle or care about anything.

I was in a complete trance. I had a warm feeling all over, and my whole being was poSsessed by the need for a drink. I sat and pondered how good it would feel. How it would course through my veins and the old tingling sensation would return and the world would glow. Heaven would come down and wrap me in a warm and sensuous blanket.

Then a little voice in the back of my mind said; "Good God, the antabuse is in my veins. If I drink I will become violently ill and land in the hospital. I shook my head and fought to come back to reality. Had some food, felt better.

The cremonies came and went. I thanked the host for inviting me, and said goodby to a few acquaintances I knew and left the room. Down the elevator. Then like Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz" going out the door I reentered reality. It was all over.

To this day I cannot explain what had happened to me, but I have often heard people say "what ever caused "so and so" to drop off the wagon after so many years of sobriety? Maybe the same thing happened to them. Who knows? Perhaps I wouldn't have had a drink without the antabuse, but I feel that it was the only factor that brought me through. As a saying in Alcoholic Anonymous, "Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful!" How true!

I am now firmly convinced that I will have to be on guard against this-all powerful compulsion, which may only occur occasionally, for the rest of my natural life. I am also certain that I am going to take antabuse indefinitely, if only to have its protection for the future, when this situation at the bar may again arise.

A good friend of mine after a year's abstinence actually drank on top of antabuse! He cannot, to this day explain how it happened. It was one day's drinking that caused a withdrawal so severe that he is only gettin fully over it physically and mentally months later.

He related somewhat the same experience that I had in the bar - the feeling of being taken over by something intangible and all powerful. So - smart-ass , cocky Felstead has been taken down a peg or two, and now much humbler, is going to be much more careful, and less self righteous in the future.

DON FELSTEAD

DON says: It is now 2008, and I am still sober without any slips. My wife is proud of me, my children are proud of me, and I am proud of me. I humbly thank God for his guidance and help.