The Good Life
February 2025 | Longtimers | Featured Section

The Good Life

In nearly five decades, he’s seen a lot of changes. But one thing he knows for sure—sobriety is amazing

I got sober just south of Lake Ontario in New York state. We lived in the country, and back then in the 1970s our AA meetings were quite primitive. We had no chips, no Daily Reflections book and no brewed coffee. Some meetings had no literature, not even Big Books. We read out of a small, black book called Twenty-Four Hours a Day that was never Conference-approved. There were no rehabs, half-way houses or alcoholism counselors. Almost everyone came to AA by just appearing at a meeting or through a Twelfth Step call.

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