Stardom on the AA Circuit

BEFORE ALCOHOLISM wiped me out, I wrote plays. After I got into AA and began going to open (speaker) meetings, I was overwhelmed by the real theater of the personal stories of recovered alcoholics. Invariably, their stories were filled with an intensity beyond the capabilities of average professional theater, and I believe that intensity derived as much from the no-nonsense honesty of the speaker as from the incredible details of his or her story. By comparison, street theater and cinema verité in particular were all but spoiled for me from then on.