How I Got Sober Later In Life

I don’t remember when I first had the courage to say: “Hi, I’m Pat. I’m an alcoholic,” but I know it was in the first week or two of my sobriety, when I was 69 years old. I had come into AA at the suggestion of my grief counsellor shortly after my husband died of cirrhosis. She had asked if I thought I was an alcoholic, too. I admitted, begrudgingly: “Yes.” She asked: “Have you ever considered going to AA? “No,” I said, emphatically. When she countered that there was an AA meeting the following Saturday morning and she thought I might like it, I answered: “Okay.” The first miracle occurred when I actually went to that meeting on January 2, 2016. It was so unlike me to follow such a suggestion.