It was 1982. I was 32 years old. I had just taken a job as the editorial director of a newsletter publishing company. I needed to hire a freelance writer immediately.

Kieran Doherty appeared in my office. He was older than the other candidates by more than 20 years.

“I’m ready to work,” he said as soon as he sat down.

I looked at his resume. Lots of experience as a reporter and newspaper columnist.

“Why are you interested in doing this,” I asked. “It seems like a step down.”

“I need a job,” he said.

He was a great hire… for six months. Then he didn’t show up on Monday… or Tuesday… or the rest of the week.

Several months later, out of the blue, he walked into my office, sat down, and said, “Remember me?”

“Where the hell have you been?” I asked.

“I will tell you the truth,” he said. “But you won’t like it.”

“Try me,” I said.

And that’s how I was introduced to the amazing life story that Kieran eventually turned into a riveting book, full of wit, bravado, and Irish charm.

In Back From the Abyss: The Autobiography of a Low-Bottom Alky, he takes the reader on the wild ride that was his life. Surviving a childhood as tough as Frank McCourt’s in Angela’s Ashes, we watch him change from altar boy to rebel… then throw away a promising career in the theater. We follow him through his almost unbelievable adventures in the military… through four marriages and countless lovers… through the alcohol-fueled crimes that ultimately landed him in prison.

And along the way, we get a feel for the internal pain, the constant struggle of the “low-bottom” alky to make it from one day to the next.  Article Link “the fix”…