"I Get No Kick From Champaigne...

...mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all.
So tell me why should it be true,
That I get a kick out of you."

Today I celebrate the 4th anniversary of my sobriety. Without a doubt one of the hardest, yet easiest things I've ever done.

I was lucky, and I know it. Things never got "rock bottom" for me. I didn't lose my job or my home or my wife or my kid or my friends. I may have, temporarily, lost their respect, but I always had their love and support. I saw the writing on the wall and I knew that if I didn't quit, I would lose everything that was important to me.

And so "I finished a lifetime of drinking rather sooner than one might have expected." (I stole this line from the writer, Anne Rice, but when I had the occasion to mention it to her, she said "That which is freely given cannot ever be considered stolen.")

I say it was hard and easy to stop drinking because, for an alcoholic, giving up drinking is the hardest thing they will ever do. The enemy is truly "cunning, baffling, powerful"! You have got to want it real bad.

But I was lucky -- I had great incentive, and that made it easy. I love my wife and son more than anything, and the thought of someday loosing them was more than I could bear. My friends provided a harbor of safety and security for me. My neighborhood AA meetings provided encouragement and empathy.

There are so many people who believed in me and supported me and encouraged me -- too many to than by name, but there are a few special people who stand apart who can and should be acknowledged: My lovely wife, Myfanwe, and my great son, Norbert. My friends Nancy, Ben, Aaron, David, Chuck, Leora, Michael, and Wetzelwoman.. Thank you so much, and may G-d bless you as much as I have been blessed.