Getting off the Roller Coaster

When I first came to AA and people suggested I might just be a garden–variety drunk like the rest of them, I thought they were blind. I genuinely thought that when people said garden–variety drunks, they meant people who’d gone to endless afternoon lawn parties, say, in Connecticut, played croquet and drank gin. That’s a garden–variety drunk. I was more of the insane, bipolar, living–in–a–car–with–delusions–of–world–power type of drunk.