I touched bottom, as alcoholics like to say, on 12 February 1983 (the date is slightly fuzzy). Thirty-one years ago John Sutherland nearly lost everything to drink. A married man, with family, working as a visiting professor of English on the west coast of America, he awoke from a blackout to find he was lying next to a stranger a very strange stranger. This was his morning of clarity; it was time to sober up. Or die.Last Drink To LA is part reportage, part confession, in which John takes a frank look at drinking culture on both sides of the Atlantic, weighing up the pros and cons of Alcoholics Anonymous, which since its launch nearly a century ago has sparked hot debate. Is it a cult, or the best life-saver drinkers have? What John courageously shares here is not a temperance tale (told to terrify, inform and instruct), not what AA calls a "drunkalog", but a moving and thought-provoking meditation some thinking about drinking and the devastating effects it has on individuals, families and society at large.