Uncluttered Sobriety

A MEASURE of our progress in sobriety may be the things we discard. In my case, the very first thing to go was my supply of pills. When I was deposited in a drunk farm (and thus began my personal trudge on "the Road of Happy Destiny") twenty-two years ago, the attendant in the men's dorm immediately rifled my luggage and confiscated the bottles of tranquilizers, barbiturates, and sleeping pills I had wheedled out of my doctor and my pharmacist and tucked away there. When I left the farm two and a half weeks later, the director lined up my pill bottles on his desk and said, "These are your property, so I am returning them to you. But if you work the Steps and go to meetings, you don't need them. They are bad news for the alcoholic, and I advise you to toss them in this wastebasket here." I believed him, and I did.