Sobriety doesn’t need to sell itself

SUNDAY morning, one of my great joys -- coffee and The Times. So what’s the first thing I see in the Calendar section? Another article on none other than Tom Sizemore [“His Latest Role: Coming Clean,” Jan. 7]. The second “A” in A.A. stands for anonymity. Another expression associated with A.A. is “Attraction, not promotion.” What this basically means is, don’t tell us about your wonderful sobriety, i.e., how you didn’t beat up any women today. Just live a sober life and others will be attracted to what they see in you. Many of my friends are working actors, myself included, who partied through the ‘70s and into the ‘80s. We knew we would die if we continued living that life and were fortunate to know when the “dance was over” and it was time to find a new partner. So a lot of us cleaned up our lives and got on with it and didn’t feel compelled to give an interview or go on “Dateline” every time we managed to stay alive for another day. No big deal -- very simple -- drugs and alcohol were killing us -- we decided we wanted to live.

How about profiling some of the regular people -- actors, writers, waitresses, bookkeepers -- who stopped killing themselves and decided it was time to live? People who didn’t expect to be congratulated for trying to make some sort of decent life for themselves -- even if it meant going “back to Detroit and working at General Motors.”

STANLEY KAMEL

Los Angeles