Surviving the Fall

I made my first AA meeting in south Texas in March or April 1971, at the age of thirteen. My parents were in the middle of a nasty divorce, complete with shotguns and butcher knives, and Dad was trying to get sober. His motives at the time weren't very good. He was trying to win the custody fight, and his lawyer and social worker both said that if he quit drinking for a while and went to AA, it might look better to the judge. They thought it would look even better if he took his kids to Alateen and open AA meetings, so that's how I ended up at the meeting. I'd been drinking and taking drugs for about a year, and had experienced blackouts and hangovers. My first drunk, at twelve, was most of a half-gallon of Chianti.