My Serenity Bracelet

　　 When I first got out of Lakewood Hospital's Rehab Wing, I wore the plastic patient's I.D. bracelet for three months. That bracelet was my Scarlet Letter and my Red Badge of Courage, ever reminding me that I have a sickness, an illness, an identity that I could not change, that I am an Alcoholic Forever. One of my forevers would have to be that I would have to change if I were to remain sober. I did not know it then, couldn't have known it, but that plastic I.D. bracelet was like my own personal "Serenity Prayer" incarnate, unspoken, felt, neither consciously known nor understood.


from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Chapter 9)