Excerpt From a Paris Diary

May 9, 1988: Today I began the nineteenth year of my sobriety, 3,500 miles from home and my AA friends. Sitting with a morning coffee in the scented suburban garden of my daughter, a writer living in Paris who just had her first child and my fourth grandson, I choked back tears of joy, overwhelmed at the miracle of all those sober years and the happiness they have brought. I had a need to express my gratitude and determined that I must find and shake the hand of another alcoholic.