In the Light of AA

Twenty minutes late and with the odor of beer trailing him at noon, a client I'll call "Brian" dropped into the office chair opposite mine. He studied his hands and mumbled something about his girlfriend being mad at him. Brian's sister had phoned me the day before. He'd started drinking again. Brian was forty-six years old with nothing to show except trouble, fines, jail, rehabs, and the recent alcoholic deaths of two friends, and he still wanted to do it his way.