Pill-consciousness

I WAS IN AA three years before I would admit to anyone that I was a psychiatrist, and I was in AA five years before I would take an aspirin. Through my active-alcoholism years, I had been hospitalized eight times and had been seen by thirteen psychiatrists. I had been given shock treatment, which I liked because of the intravenous Pentothal, and also a variety of medications. At the time I got sober, twelve years ago, I was wearing borrowed clothes, and my wife was spending borrowed money for food. All along the way, no psychiatrist had ever suggested to me that I was an alcoholic.