I chose my sponsor in the usual way. He chose me. In two years I had completed three of the Twelve Steps. I was miserable. Patrick grabbed me by the ear one night after a meeting.

     "Why are you so miserable?"

     I smiled, a delaying tactic. I didn't want to disrespect Patrick, tell him to fuck off as I had told others to fuck off. He leaned in close, spoke softly.

     "Are your parents alcoholic? How about aunts and uncles? Cousins?"

    This jogged my memory. One cousin was dead. Took a canoe into the swamps of Florida and never came out. Another guy is in jail somewhere in Colorado.

     One uncle in particular was responsible for these tragedies. Left his wife with five young kids.  None was successful. Maybe her brother is why my Mom rarely took a drink and never more than one.

    My father had someone on his side as well. The most successful of his brothers. An architect. Put six kids through college. Kiwanis, Elks Club, Chamber of Commerce, P.T.A. He went to Florida when he retired. My Dad took him up on an invite to visit. Uncle Dennis' car sat with four flat tires in front of the trailer. They had their booze delivered. Never got out of their bathrobes. Dad left the second day, heartbroken. Denis and his wife died within two years of his retirement.

     So, yeah, there was some alcoholism in my family.

     "Anyone in recovery?"

     "Just me that I know of."

     "So here you are miserable. You hate yourself for what you became. But you don't see this has been going on forever. Since man came out of the trees your family has been full of crazy, fucked up people."

     I wasn't following him.

    "You know what they did about it, all those people, all those years? Nothing. The curse, they called it. Uncle Bill has a cold. That's what they said! He has a cold!

     "I had an Uncle Sean. The rich uncle. You got anyone like that? The right side of the tracks? Bible says Jesus was the only begotten Son of God. In our family it was Jesus and Uncle Sean. All us unwashed rabble, Sean was the only one made money. We went to his house we genuflected on his front porch. Genuflected!

     "One year we're invited over for New Year's Eve. Mom would throw all five kids in the tub at once and scrub the skin off us."

     Patrick became more animated as he rolled into his stories, imitating a little kid getting scrubbed behind the ears.

     "OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!"

     Soon enough our private chat was no longer private. People filing out of the church where we held the meeting drifted back in, drawn to the melodious sounds of Patrick regaling another newcomer with The Word. His face turned red beneath his white hair, blue eyes bulging out through Coke-bottle, Mr. McGoo glasses.

     "You know how in nice houses there's the 'powder room' downstairs? That means 'kids, go piss somewhere else.' The nice towels out. Soap shaped like flowers. Kids weren't supposed to use the 'powder room' at Uncle Sean's. We were reminded of this ten times on the way over, you know, 'cause at our house there were so many of us we'd piss in the sink, who gave a fuck?

     Like the seasoned entertainer he was, Patrick recognized when he had to wait for the applause to subside. Everyone was howling. This gave him time to think of another joke, which is why his stories got better with every telling.

     "We're gonna boil the potatoes anyway, right?"

     "So who forgets the powder room rule?" he shrugs. "You know who. I'm in there pissing on the toilet seat and wiping it up with four-generations old from County Claire embroidered hand towels, washing my greasy, pissy hands with the flowered soap, and Uncle Jesus...Uncle Sean tries to get in and can't because I locked the door.

     "So Sean goes out on the back porch and lights a cigar while he hangs his dick over the rail and pisses into the yard. I go back in the living room because it's almost midnight and everyone's watching the countdown to New Year's in Times Square.

    "Sean walks into the room with his dick out. He forgot. He's so smashed he doesn't know his cock is hanging out his fly, piss trails all down his leg, he's sucking on his cigar like nothing happened.

     "You know where the expression 'stunned silence' came from? New Year's Eve, 1952. Thirty people in the room no one says a word. I'm next to my sister, five years old, eye's like Buick headlights. Every  jaw on the floor. Eventually someone gets the moron in the next room tells him zip your fucking pants and everyone goes on like it never happened. NEVER HAPPENED!!!

     "No one said a fucking word! Until the ride home, of course. Then I got the snot smacked out of me because I told you SMACK not to use the powder room at Uncle Sean's SMACK. I  told  you SMACK, one hand on the steering wheel turned completely around the other  smacking the shit out of me."

     "So Sean's wife, Aunt whatsherfuckIforget, anyway, she calls my mother a few days later, says it was my fault Sean walked into a room full of people with his dick out because I was locked in his exalted powder room pissing all over the place. My fault!

     "We were never invited back Never invited back! NEVER...do you unders...Never invited back, swear to God next time I saw him was at his funeral...don't get me started about Sean's funeral...they never invited us back!

     "You just didn't talk about it. You didn't say the word 'drunk.' My mother and father never mentioned the Sean's dick thing on New Year's Eve. Never. You didn't say the words. Uncle Sean was sick, he had a cold...then... away from the kids it 'he's got the curse.' Can you imagine? How many bloddy, black-eyed wives, how many kids with no shoes no underwear sucking on stale bread crusts because Dad's a drunk. How many guys dead before they're fourty? How many generation of this and no one not one not fucking one ever just quit? Quit! They didn't even talk about it. 

     "What you are doing, Jim. You are breaking this chain. I'm not saying no one in your family is going to drink, sure they will, but when little Johnny starts getting in trouble at school, you think his Mom and Dad are gonna, you know, tsk, tsk he's got the curse. Fuck no. They're going to call you. 'Can you talk to him Jimmy? He's in trouble.' Maybe he'll listen maybe he won't but he'll know there's a way out. The thousand who came before us. They never knew. The tens of thousands before us. They never knew.

     "Drunks stayed drunk and died that was it. But for everyone associated with us. Nieces, nephews, kids, everyone. It'll be different. They'll know. No one will ever laugh at a drunk falling down the stairs again. They'll see it for what it is.

     "And who...listen close now...who did God chose to be the first one after generation after generation of misery to break this chain? Who did God pick to be the first to cut the cord on thousands of years of alcoholism in your family? He chose you. God thinks you can handle this."

     "So why don't you?"

     I mumbled something.

     "Jim...look at me...Jim, God is never wrong. Never. Go home. Do your Fourth Step. Bring it to me here next week. Understand?"

     It wasn't a question.