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January 1989

Crossing the Threshold

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable

I was a Bowery bum when I came to my first AA meeting. On the surface, you'd think I would have had no trouble admitting complete defeat. To most people I had become more of a thing than a person: a thing of pity, of fear and disgust. For almost four years I had panhandled for my wine, not bathed for weeks at a time, slept in doorways in my own filth. I had lice--and on my arms and legs were "wine" sores that wouldn't heal. Talk about being "bankrupt as a going human concern." I had, in the words of Red H., "no bank to rapt."

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