Going to Any Lengths

I got sober on October 30, 1997. I had sixty-four years of life experience at the time, forty-five as a functioning drunk and one really bad year. Treatment counselors called me an "early onset" alcoholic. You think? Imagine my insurance company paying good money to find out I started young? I wanted to stop, so I took the right actions and went to AA. I was uncomfortable at most meetings. I found that I was always the oldest newcomer by far. When I settled on a home group, the only member older than I had twenty-one years of sobriety. More than once, some forty-year-old would ask for advice or if I knew his first sponsor "a guy about your age." It was amusing to watch their faces when I took a sixty- or ninety-day chip. I looked for meetings for "Seniors" but found none. However, I accepted my alcoholism and really wanted to stay sober, so my discomfort was a small price to pay.