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Alcoholism is a strange and wily mistress, especially when observed from up close. She’ll flirt with you, entice you to dance, and then by her indifference appear harmless and disinterested. Finally, though, she’ll invite you into her house and make you feel at home, make you feel good about yourself, distracting you from the fact that she’d locked the door behind you. Then, once you’re all relaxed and settled in, ready for a good romp, she’ll beat the living hell out of you—and then she’ll do it again…and again…and again.

Unfortunately, I’d found all that out firsthand. Fortunately, however, I’d stumbled into an AA meeting at a relatively young age, and it took. I got sober and refound my sanity with hardly any effort at all.

From there, life had been a piece of cake. I’d married a good woman, had a couple of good kids, and had started a business that made me a good living. Well, that’s understating. Turns out I was gifted when it came to making money, and again, at a relatively young age I’d made enough money to retire several times over. I was living the good life.

Of course, being successful work-wise invariably meant that you’d make enemies. It was an inevitability—just a cost of doing business. No bother, though. Once I’d beat you I’d simply cross you off the list and look ahead to the next target. I never looked behind me—never. Turns out that was a mistake.

One of my enemies—a guy whose business I’d buried some years back—managed to hold onto a resentment toward me, and over the years that resentment had apparently grown quite large. I know this because—well, because a month ago he kidnapped my eldest daughter. He didn’t hide it from me, either. In fact, he couldn’t wait to tell me. Naturally, I offered him crazy amounts of money…but oddly enough, he wasn’t interested in money. And not because he had money, either. I checked—he was on the lean side of poor.

What he wanted—aside from my silence about our arrangement, of course—was for me to meet him at a particular bar every evening after work and drink with him until he’d decided I’d had enough. I’d tried explaining to him that I was an alcoholic and couldn’t drink. His response? Precisely.

We’ve been at it a while now. I’d replaced my morning coffee with straight vodka about two weeks in. After a month I stopped going to work altogether and would just drink the day away at the bar, waiting for him to show. He won’t tell me how long we’ll be at this, either, but I think I know. I think we all know, don’t we.

The first step in AA is admitting that you’re powerless over alcohol and that your life has become unmanageable. I am and it is. But here’s the thing: So my daughter can live, step one is all I get.