It wasn't the first time she made it with her sobriety, and it wasn't the last. But it was five years clean. So Deb and I brought her two much younger sisters, and drove to DC, to see her get her coin. The girls were in upper elementary school, old enough to understand. And not be too freaked out, we figured. Besides, families were invited.

It was a little more raw, rough-edged, than we expected. Nothing cringeworthy, but there were hundreds there, and the room had an expectant and fearful quality. I figure maybe 25% of the sober folks had lied or maybe were still lying about their sobriety. That was part of it, that red-rimmed energy in the room. I figured there was a lot of hushed family anger, too, lurking. And among the truly sober, especially the more successful ones, there must have been a nervous awareness of how contingent their sobriety was, even those getting their 10 and 15 year coins.

But altogether the crowd was upbeat. Exalted, even, here and there.

We were perhaps the only complete family I saw there. Parents were not too common, and usually just the one. Made sense: who got conned by drunks first, or most? Siblings and friends predominated, but there were wives and husbands, a few wife-plus-kids combinations.

It was a typical AA meeting, and they had one of each thing: the preliminaries, a story, a prayer at the end. When Molly got her coin she introduced all of us, sitting in the front row. I was asked if I wanted to say something. Uh-oh. Unexpected.

I stood up. I can't quote myself here, but I know what I said. I told her I loved her, and I was proud of her. I was inspired to be there. I felt related to everyone in the room. So as gushes go it was simple. I just made direct statements, which can seem very emotional in the right circumstances.

This was one such set. I remember not knowing where to look, scanning around, and being startled the whole time by the hunger and intensity on nearly everyone's faces. It excited and scared me. There were actual gasps and spontaneous, loud applause as Molly and I then gave each other a good hug.

After, it was hard to move from all the people who came over to tell me something. Some of it was rushed-out storytelling -- "My son was...", "When my husband...", I wish my parents..."

That was the most common thing. Even if it was "Thank you", many also added: "I wish my daughter..." or "husband..." or "brother..." was tacked on. And besides those who mustered a voice we also got big grins, bright smiles, laminated for some on heartbreaking grief. Everyone seemed transparent to us, unmasked. Illuminated faces, as we worked our way out to the church's smoky, crowded lawn.

That night 12 years ago I encountered, face-to-face, something few non-alcoholics ever see: the congregation of lost souls, huddling together around the tentative flame of Trying Together. I saw the sum of it, the herd look of stragglers, from every tribe, wandering in from the steppes of Normal Life. I got to see how universal this faceted loss is, among drinkers, how broken they are. Seen in isolation, as single members of our families, or friends at work or school, they seem either unremarkable, or just weak, needy, or dishonest. To blame.

Most families tend to push away acceptance, even awareness, of how their alcoholics have such common fractures, such recognizable problems, refusing the guilt, the responsibility, the shame, the danger that acceptance entails. This willful distancing combines with weariness from sheer proximity, with the tiring work of just knowing a user, with the legacy of difficult histories. The result is the unending isolation of the drinker. Shame begets shame, and a narrow focus.

That night I saw the statistics as breathing human beings. What lost looks like. What compulsion and despair does. And what hope looks like, when it's allowed in, and encouraged.

It takes a little thing to fix the ones we love: everything we have.

Our love? Give it all away. Our compassion? Cough it up, again and again. Our willingness to say no, to stop enabling? If we don't know how, we must learn. Or fake it. Whatever stops the cycle.

And we have to live with this terrible truth: nothing guarantees a happy ending. Yet we are still obligated to do our best, to be there waiting when they recover, however long it takes.

But I did so little that night. Showed up with my family. Said the right things. What poured out to me in return changed me forever, taught me this fundamental, plain-as-pie lesson: too many of our fellow suffering beings are not told the simple things, the best things, the lightswitch words that ignite the inner glow and soothe the trembling self. And what does that cost us, to say, to give, these words?

Every struggling parent and child, each older sibling and role model who is entrusted with someone's care, by birth or choice, should credit themselves every day, if they but say "I love you" and "I am proud of you" and "Please" and "Thank you". This is the main path in life, to express the nutritious lovingkindness, in the right proportions, in the right way. If you have not said it lately, say it tonight. Say it to a friend or stranger, even. Just for practice.

It is the least we can do, love is, and the least we must do. Leaving it out creates insatiable, desperate thirst. Rooms full of pain, devouring eyes, and longing.

Don't get me wrong, I take a small beer or drink, several times a year. I am dodging diabetes for a long time now, so I can't drink more often than that. But I am no prude or absolutist. And I swear, I am, er, "going to Amsterdam" someday, for nostalgia's sake. Cognoscenti, salute!

Sober is a state of mind, an attitude toward life, a belief in its rewards because someone bothered to say, never stopped saying, gracious words of love and respect. The words that change mere co-existence into rich rewards.

My three daughters, grown or nearly, are now steady, all of them. It's disconcerting at times for this old hippie to live with such resolute, rapturously sober young women. But that gleam you see, the reliable light, coming from my house? It's the steady, pulsing beacon, the unbreakable lighthouse, of love, just love, and all its good works.

It cost me everything. It cost me almost nothing. It cost me every good word.