My Name Is Tom

I WAS six when my dad got sober in AA, so I don't remember much about his drinking. I went to my first open AA meeting five years later and continued to go to these meetings regularly throughout my teens. From the first, I was struck by the people I met in AA and the things I heard different speakers say in meetings. Here were grown-ups who had been in trouble and were now free from it. The way they laughed and talked, the way they took me in as their friend, added up to proof enough for me--these men and women "had something" that I admired and wanted to share in.