"I'm really quite reclusive but everyone thinks I'm social... I mostly played hooky from school. I pretended to be sick all the time. In high school I turned down our fraternity and as a result was an outcast. In my junior year, I was on the fringe and picked on. So I started drinking on spring vacation and was immediately accepted at all levels of society. Alcohol was the key to the social kingdom...
I went into corporate sales and climbed the ladder pretty fast. But my drinking was getting increasingly worse. I had 11 states and was on the road all the time, spending time in bars, alone. By the end of 1958, at age 24, I had my first alcoholic seizure... My boss was in AA and he offered me all the United States (sales) with one condition: I give up drinking. I said I didn't want to travel that much...
My AA sponsor took me to a meeting in a gymnasium where I was struck still and felt like fluid was filling my body up. And I was struck with the notion, 'I'll never be alone again.' I didn't sleep for two weeks. It was the greatest feeling of elation... I haven't even thought about drinking in 39 years."
- Martin Dodd, 'MontereyHerald.com'
