The Little Book

I knocked around the program eight years before I was able to put a year together without a drink or a drug. During those eight years, four of my stories were published in the Grapevine. When I brought my first story to the GV, the editor did not ask for any documents attesting to the length and depth of my sobriety. Nobody told me I needed 90 days of sobriety to write for the Grapevine--or, for that matter, that I needed to be sober at all! When I got word that my first story was accepted and would be published I went out and got drunk. I remember showing the acceptance letter to the bartender at a Blarney Stone on 14th Street.