Interview With an 80-Year-Old Sober Person: Sydney Lea

"I am, by anyone’s standard, pretty damned close to death; I don’t think much about death unless I stop living my life, as my recovery community advises, a day at a time."

23 years from now, when I am 73 years old, I will have 30 years of sobriety, but there is a part of me that wonders if that is a good age to go out and try drinking again. 30 is a nice round number and a decent chunk of sober time, so, who knows, maybe I’ll be able to drink like a gentleman in a non-destructive way by then—one glass of dark French wine …