"In the summer of 1974," Elmore Leonard once recalled, "a friend advised me to stop drinking and start going to AA meetings. I was 49 and had been a fairly serious drinker since high school... After I came home smashed from a party, my wife at the time was likely to say, 'Your problem is you don't count your drinks.' And my smart-ass reply would be, 'Yes, I do. I had fifteen.'"

[Compare Keith Richards's classic line: "I don't have a problem with drugs. I have a problem with cops."]