Without Preaching Or Moralizing

I AM AN alcoholic. I had heard about AA long before I was ready to admit this to myself or anyone else, and I had a mental picture of what I thought AA was all about. I imagined that the members were a straitlaced bunch of people who gathered together in a large hall, took turns giving their testimony on the evils of strong drink, and waited for phone calls summoning them to rescue missions. When I attended my first AA meeting, after being a patient in a hospital recovery program, it was a pleasant surprise to find such a friendly group of people--people from all walks of life with a common problem, alcoholism.