The moment I stepped into my first meeting, someone asked me if I’d like to be the guest speaker, to which I’d replied, “Speak in front of the group? Sure, why not!” What could be better than that? I figured.

The problems started quickly. I was offered a seat behind a rectangular table at the front of the room. The meeting’s chairperson, a kind-looking man in his early fifties, sat down beside me and made a few brief announcements. Then he motioned for me to begin.

I nodded and said, in a loud, forthright voice, “Hi, my name is Jordan, and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”

The room of thirty or so ex-drunks responded in unison: “Hi, Jordan; welcome.”

I smiled and nodded. With great confidence, I said, “I’ve been sober for thirty-seven days now and—”

I was immediately cut off. “Excuse me,” said an ex-drunk with gray hair and spidery veins on his nose. “You need to be sober ninety days to speak at this meeting.”

Why, the insolence of the old bastard! I was absolutely devastated. I felt like I’d gotten on the school bus without remembering to put my clothes on. I just sat there, in this terribly uncomfortable wooden chair, staring at the old drunk and waiting for someone to drag me off with a hook.

“No, no. Let’s not be too tough,” said the chairperson. “Since he’s already up here, why don’t we just let him speak? It’ll be a breath of fresh air to hear a newcomer.”

Impudent mumbles came bubbling up from the crowd, along with a series of insolent shrugs and contemptuous head-shakes. They looked angry. And vicious. The chairperson put his arm on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes, as if to say, “It’s okay. You can go on.”

I nodded my head nervously. “Okay,” I said to the angry ex-drunks. “I’ve been sober for thirty-seven days now and—”

I was cut off again, except this time by thunderous applause. Ahhh, how wonderful!The Wolf was receiving his first ovation, and he hadn’t even gotten going yet! Wait ’til they hear my story! I’ll bring the house down!

Slowly, the applause died down, and with renewed confidence I plowed on: “Thanks, everybody. I really appreciate the vote of confidence. My drug of choice was Quaaludes, but I did a lot of cocaine too. In fact—”

I was cut off again. “Excuse me,” said my nemesis with the spider veins, “this is an AA meeting, not an NA meeting. You can’t talk about drugs here, only alcohol.”

I looked around the room, and all heads were nodding in agreement. Oh, shit!That seemed like a dated policy. This was the nineties now. Why would someone choose to be an alcoholic yet shun drugs? It made no sense.

I was about to jump out of my chair and run for the hills, when I heard a powerful female voice yell, “How dare you, Bill! How dare you try to drive away this young boy who’s fighting for his life! You’re despicable! We’re all addicts here. Now, why don’t you just shut up and mind your own business and let the boy speak?”

The boy?Had I just been called a boy? I was almost thirty-five now, for Chrissake! I looked over at the voice, and it was coming from a very old lady wearing granny glasses. She winked at me. So I winked back.

The old drunk sputtered at Grandma, “Rules are rules, you old hag!”

I shook my head in disbelief. Why did the insanity follow me wherever I went? I hadn’t done anything wrong here, had I? I just wanted to stay sober. Yet, once again, I was at the center of an uproar. “Whatever,” I said to the chairperson. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

At the end of the day, they let me speak, although I left the meeting wanting to wring the old bastard’s neck. From there, things continued to spiral downward when I went to an NA—Narcotics Anonymous—meeting. There were only four other people in the room; three of them were visibly stoned, and the fourth had even fewer days sober than me.

I wanted to say something to the Duchess, to tell her that this whole AA thing wasn’t for me, but I knew she’d be devastated. Our relationship was growing stronger by the day. There was no more fighting or cursing or hitting or stabbing or slapping or water-throwing—nothing. We were just two normal individuals, living a normal life with Chandler and Carter and twenty-two in domestic help. We had decided to stay out in Southampton for the summer. Better to keep me isolated from the madness, we figured, at least until my sobriety took hold. The Duchess had issued warnings to all my old friends: They were no longer welcome in our house unless they were sober. Alan Chemical-tob received a personal warning from Bo, and I never heard from him again.

And my business? Well, without Quaaludes and cocaine, I no longer had the stomach for it, or at least not yet. As a sober man, problems like Steve Madden Shoes seemed easy to deal with. I’d had my lawyers file a lawsuit, while I was still in rehab, and the escrow agreement was now public. So far, I hadn’t gotten myself arrested over it, and I suspected I never would. After all, on the face of it, the agreement wasn’t illegal; it was more an issue of Steve having not disclosed it to the public—which made it his liability more than mine. Besides, Agent Coleman had faded off into the sunset long ago, hopefully never to be heard from again. Eventually, I would have to settle with the Cobbler. I had already resigned myself to that fact, and I no longer gave a shit. Even in my most depraved emotional state—just before I’d entered rehab—it wasn’t the money that had been driving me crazy but the idea of the Cobbler trying to snatch my stock and keep it for himself. And that was no longer a possibility. As part of a settlement he would be forced to sell my stock to pay me off, and that would be that. I would let my lawyers deal with it.

I had been home for a little over a week when I came home one evening from an AA meeting and found the Duchess sitting in the TV room—the very room where I had lost my twenty-gram rock six weeks ago, which the Duchess had now admitted to having flushed down the toilet.

With a great smile on my face, I said, “Hey, sweetie! What’s—”

The Duchess looked up, and I froze in horror. She was visibly shaken. Tears streamed down her face, and her nose was running. With a sinking heart, I said, “Jesus, baby! What’s wrong? What happened?” I hugged her gently.

Her body was trembling in my arms when she pointed to the TV screen and said through tears, “It’s Scott Schneiderman. He killed a police officer a few hours ago. He was trying to rob his father for coke money and he shot a policeman.” She broke down hysterically.

I felt tears streaming down my cheeks as I said, “Jesus, Nae, he was here just a month ago. I…I don’t…” I searched for something to say but quickly realized that no words could describe the magnitude of this tragedy.

So I said nothing.

A week later, on a Friday evening, the seven-thirty meeting at Our Lady of Poland Church had just begun. It was Memorial Day weekend, and I was expecting the usual sixty minutes of torture. Then, to my shock, the opening words from the meeting’s chairperson came in the form of a directive—stating that there would be no drug-drizzling allowed, not under his watch. He was creating a Drizzle-Free Zone, he explained, because the purpose of AA was to create hope and faith, not to complain about the length of the checkout line at Grand Union. Then he held up an egg timer for public inspection, and he said, “There’s nothing that you can’t say in less than two and a half minutes that I have any interest in hearing. So keep it short and sweet.” He nodded once.

I was sitting toward the back, next to a middle-aged woman who looked reasonably well kept, for an ex-drunk. She had reddish hair and a ruddy complexion. I leaned over to her and whispered, “Who is that guy?”

“That’s George. He’s sort of the unofficial leader here.”

“Really?” I said. “Of this meeting?”