Sobriety Countdown

IT WAS mid-August 1982, in New York City, when 1,200 sober alcoholics gathered for the Twenty-Fifth International Conference of Young People in AA (ICYPAA). One of the highlights of the weekend of sharing was Saturday night's sobriety countdown. There we were in the enormous ballroom, representing numerous states and several countries, and we were asked to stand when our year or month or week (!) of sobriety was called.