I sat on the log, breathed in the silty, fragrant air and glimpsed through a narrow opening in the latticework of branch and bush a shard of cityscape. Not far from here was the hundred-year-old Victorian mansion, converted to a recovery house for male alcoholics, where I had lived until three months ago. A requirement of residency was attendance at a nightly AA meeting in the double parlor. One Tuesday night I was sitting on a threadbare couch waiting for the meeting to begin when Larry strode into the room. His appearance alone—six-five and rapier-thin—would have made him hard to miss, but what really set him apart in our shabby crew was his immaculate navy blue, three-piece, pin-striped suit, starched white shirt, red silk tie and gold cufflinks. His head was shaved and buffed to a high shine. He stood at the archway, looked around, saw me staring at him, came over and seated himself beside me. Beneath the pink dome of his pate, he had the face of a crafty infant. I was utterly intimidated.

“Larry,” he said, extending a delicate-looking hand that concealed a powerful grip.

“Henry,” I replied, shaking his hand.

“You a resident here?”

“Yes.”

“How much time do you have, Henry?” he asked, the standard AA ice-breaker.

“Thirty-one days,” I said, my voice involuntarily shaking.

His features shifted, became gentler, and I saw the kindness in his bright blue eyes. “How are you doing on day thirty-one?”

For thirty-one days I had done everything I had been told to do; attended therapy and meetings, read the Big Book of AA, kept a journal, sat down to communal meals with my fellow drunks and addicts and “shared” my feelings. I did these things out of a desperation so deep that, when I allowed myself to peer into it, I could not see bottom. But no matter how hard I tried, how sincerely I wanted to “work the program,” I was constantly aware of standing at the rim of that abyss and the ground seemed to be slipping away beneath my feet. The urge to drink was never far from my mind, swooping in like a bird of prey, threatening to carry away my resolve and plunge me back into the nightmare of drinking and dying.

I had been afraid to admit this to anyone, terrified even, to let the thought fully form in my mind but beneath Larry’s compassionate gaze I blurted out, “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

He reached for my hand and held it, firmly. “You will.”

There was such conviction in his voice and certainty in his eyes that I wanted to believe him.

“How?”

“After the meeting, we’ll go out for coffee and talk. Okay?”

I shook my head because my eyes had filled with tears and I was afraid if I tried to speak my voice would break.