There, But For The Grace Of God Go I By: Anthony Pellegrino

Recently on a Saturday evening in Boston, I was seated in a small dining room in a sobriety house attending a meeting of the Alcoholics and Cocaine Anonymous. I had been invited to this gathering by a close friend to meet his fellow companions. He wanted me to see where and how he lived and to hear his friends’ stories. There were about thirty men ranging in age from 25 to 57.

Sharply at seven the meeting started. “Hi, my name is Fred and I am an alcoholic. I started drinking….” As he spoke I felt embarrassed listening to this man’s intimate confession of his life. Uttering his words slowly and deliberately, he appeared to be wrestling with a strange apparition. All the other members in the room as myself stared at the table tops in silence listening intently.

He stumbled on, relating how at the age of 18 he had begun to drink because he was having problems with his parents. They finally threw him out of the house. The drinking got worse. His friends were mostly older men in the same clutches of drink. He dawdled with drugs but his main comfort in life was a drink. After about ten minutes he expressed, that at 38 years of age, how glad he is to be in this halfway house with other men fumbling to gain a hold on their lives. He closed by saying: ” I have been sober for two months now. I live day by day hoping I don’t drink today.”

Next a black man of about forty related how he had started on drugs at the age of thirteen while working as a shoe shine boy in Detroit. Surrounded by pimps, prostitutes, and hustlers, he learned their habits quickly. He’d been in and out of jail over five times. He was proud to proclaim that he was clean for about six months but still felt a strong urge for drugs. He too said: “One day at a time–maybe I will overcome the urge.”

There was Charlie whose brains were “fried” from too many drugs. He fidgety sat staring at the ceiling and then the floor . Later outside I saw him with a set of headphones wandering in the yard excitedly talking to himself.

The hour passed agonizingly slow. Each of the men’s words struck me sharply as I empathized with their hurting souls. I had never been in the same room and listened first hand to men who were constantly wrestling to stay sober or off drugs on a day to day basis. It was a rare insight into a growing social blight that many of us try to sweep under the rug and pretend that it does not exist.

I believe that each of the men in the room is sincere about his strong desire to stay clean, but his body pulls him into another direction at any expense. Later each told me that the most difficult moment in his life was to admit that he is an alcoholic or a drug addict. From that moment of selftruth, each is able to begin the road back to sobriety. Each one also placed his life and trust in a higher power to guide him and give him strength.

That evening I learned the true meaning of Alcoholics and Cocaine Anonymous. I shared the fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help other recover.

As I left, I looked up into the star-filled night and uttered to myself: “There, but for the grace of God, go I!”