Nancy Carr

I was relieved to know that my disease was just that — a dis-ease. It wasn’t bad willpower or morals — I had a three-fold disease of mind, body and spirit.

I’m lucky because I got sober at my second AA meeting. After my first meeting, I ran home and drank for five days straight.

Unbeknownst to me, Kimmy and her boyfriend had been using cocaine. I was ignorant of cocaine use and wasn’t remotely interested in trying it. I was scared of it.

I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, “Why didn’t you get sober after your first DUI?” These people were not alcoholics, mind you. They were normal drinkers who didn’t understand why anyone would get a DUI in the first place, let alone — GASP — a second one!

I had been following the Grateful Dead, as much I could afford to, since 1986. I wasn’t a true Deadhead, since I bathed on a daily basis and didn’t live in a VW bus selling veggie burritos to support my marijuana and LSD habit. I did, however, like to go to their concerts along the East Coast: New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington D.C and anywhere else they played.