How to stop drinking

Excerpt from The Way of a Pilgrim

We draw up to the table and the officer began his story.

“Ever since I was a young man I have been with the army in the field and not on garrison service. I knew my job, and my superior officers liked me for a conscientious second lieutenant. Still, I was young , and so were my friends. Unhappily. I took to drink, and drunkenness became a regular passion with me. So long as I kept away from drink, I was a good officer, but when I gave way to it, I was no good for anything for six weeks at a time. They bore with me for a long while, but the end of it was that after being thoroughly rude while drunk to my commanding officer, I was cashiered and transferred to a garrison as a private soldier for three years. I was threatened with a still more severe punishment if I did not give up drinking and mend my ways. Even in this miserable state of affairs, however much I tried, I could not regain my self control nor cure myself (Ed.: The First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous athough this happened somewhere around 1860. 70+ years before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous). I found it impossible to get rid of my passion for drink, and it was decided to send me to a disciplinary corp.When I was informed of this I was at my wits end. I was in barracks occupied with my wretched thoughts when there arrived a monk who was going round collecting for a church. We each of us gave him what we could.

He came up to me and asked me why I was so unhappy, and I talked to him and told him my troubles. He sympathized with me and said, “The same thing happened to my own brother, and what do you think helped him? His spiritual father gave him a copy of the Gospels with strict orders to read a chapter a without a moments delay every time he felt a longing for wine coming over him. If the desire continued he was to read a second chapter, and so on. That is what my brother did , and at the end of a very short time his drunkenness came to an end. It is now fifteen years sinced he touched a drop of alcohol. You do the same and you will see how that will help you. I have a copy of the Gospels which you must let me bring you…………………………………………..

I forgot what I gave the monk . But I bought his book of the Gospels,put it away in a trunk with my other things and forgot it. Some while afterward a bout of drunkenness threatened me. An irrestible desire for drink dove me hurriedly to open my trunk to get some money and rush off to the public house. But the first thing my eyes fell on was the copy of the Gospels, and all that the monk had said came back vividly to my mind. I opened the book and began to read the first chapter of St. Matthew. I got to the end of it without understanding a word. Still I remembered that the monk had said:

“No matter if you do not understand, go on reading diligently.” ‘Come ‘, said I ‘I must read the secong Chapter.’ I did so and began to understand a little. So I started on the third chapter and then the barracks bell began to ring. ;everyone had to go to bed, no one was allowed to go out, and I had to stay where I was. When I got up in the morning I was just on the point of going out to get some wine when I suddenly thought-supposing I was to read another chapter. What would be the result? I read it and I did not go to the public house. Again I felt the craving,and again I read a chapter. I felt a certain amount of relief. This encourage me, and from that time on , whenever I felt the need of drink, I used to read a chapter of the Gospels. What is more , as time went on things got better and better, and by the time I had finished all four Gospels my drunkenness was absolutely a thing of the past, and I felt nothing but disgust for it. It is just twenty years now since I drank a drop of alcohol.


Published in 1884