Warm Welcome

It was a cold, clear March morning in Oregon, a change from the gray blanket of rain we usually see in the spring. The day before, I had checked myself into an inpatient drug and alcohol treatment center. It was the culmination of a series of failed relationships, school failures, and day-after-night heavy drinking and drug use, the likes of which I never imagined myself capable of. I spent the night pacing the halls, wondering things like, "Have I actually lost my mind?" "What went wrong?" "How could I have trashed my life so thoroughly in twenty-seven short years? Or is it actually twenty-eight?" (I had had a birthday recently and was so clouded that I couldn't do the math.) Then, at 6 A.M. I got a "wake-up" call, informing me that at 6:30 I was going to be bused to an AA meeting.