Garden variety

THE best way to celebrate an anniversary is to share experience, strength, and hope. I would like to begin by saying that I am a garden-variety alcoholic. I have the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body. The first time I picked up a drink I blacked out. I was in grade 9, 12 years old, going to a concert. My friend had brought a "mixed drink"--she had gone to her parents' liquor cabinet and emptied little bits of alcohol from each bottle into a container of her own. We added soda from our local convenience store, and next thing I knew, we were sitting on a bench at our local train station, passing a large cup of vile-tasting toxic booze. Down the line it went; we each took a sip and passed it along.