I Twelfth-stepped My Son

SOBER FOR several years, comfortable, sometimes feeling satisfied--then bang, my Higher Power threw a Twelfth Step call into my lap. I couldn't refuse, ignore, or forget about this alcoholic. He was my twenty-three-year-old son Pete (not his real name). When I say "threw into my lap," I mean it almost literally. It happened right in our kitchen. He was bombed out of his mind, sick, shaking, not able to stand, not remembering how he'd got home (from another state where he'd been living), broke, scared, and saying, "I don't need help!"