Alcoholics Anonymous is full of miracles. Try this one for size: All his life, David R. was a stutterer. The words just wouldn´t come out cleanly no matter how he tried. Then, nine months into sobriety, a no-nonsense sponsor told him to walk to the podium and read the Promises.

"For the first time in my life, I realized I was reading without impediment," David said. And it´s been that way ever since. He speaks flawless, unaccented English without a trace of Northeast twang despite growing up black in the Cape Cod, Massachusetts town of Harwich.

He´s also ambidextrous, something he taught himself when he learned that people with ambidexterity have improved memory. He says it has also made his speech more fluent and sharpened his mental acuity. He´s a natural lefty, but prints better with his right hand now.

"My father was educated. He encouraged all six of his kids to speak properly," David said, "and to get an education." David did, eventually, after alcohol knocked him off track in his first opportunity, Wooster Polytechnic Institute in Wooster.

David´s grandparents immigrated from the Cape Verde Islands, as did many Cape Verdians, to work in the cranberry harvest. During the summer season, the locals "get their daughters out of harm´s way and batten down the hatches. Then comes October and we go back to drinking and harvesting cranberries."

His drinking began when he was 10 years old, draining the leftover Manichevitz from the adult glasses at Easter and Thanksgiving. "For years, I thought you could only get wine twice a year. The other holidays were liquor holidays, and those dregs weren´t available to kids."

David was a hot property when he graduated from Harwich High School as a National Merit scholar in 1976. "Colleges were looking for talented black students at the time," he recalled. "I had offers from across the country, including Harvard, but my school counselor steered me toward local schools. It was felt that fast track schools were beyond us blacks. Finally, it was my own decision to go to Wooster to study civil engineering.

"I liked the party life when I got there. I was rushed by Tau Kappa Epsilon. I joined even though I was the only black. Well, the cook was black."

The party life was his undoing, though. "It helped me to fit into the social life, but I was drinking more and more and the hangovers were getting worse and worse. Pretty soon I wasn´t showing up for class. I was kicked out after a year-and-a-half. I drank myself out of school."

David went home to Harwich and went to work "pounding nails" for his older brother, who was a contractor. When it became apparent, though, that his brother wasn´t looking for a partner, David quit and enlisted in the Air Force. After basic training, he was sent across the country to Norton Air Force Base in the desert near San Bernardino, California. As company clerk for a wing flying transport missions, David eased the culture shock with steady drinking throughout his enlistment. "Never on the job, though," he said.

At the end of four years, the Air Force "cut me loose in the middle of the desert. No job, no nothing." But he soon went to work for Target in San Bernardino stocking shelves. He did well because of his strong work ethic, and the ability to hide his alcoholism. "I learned from my brother that you can drink with impunity if you obey the law and don´t use drugs. I never did use drugs. Wasn´t interested."

Target, he found, liked Air Force veterans for their discipline and willingness to learn. The feeling was mutual. In the next 10 years, David had increasing responsibilities in various Target stores in Southern California, rising to store manager. "I´m good at managing people," he explained, "and I´m honest."

While in San Bernardino, while a student at the community college there, he "met a gal who took my breath away. I didn´t know what to do with her so I married her. It was my 1984 vision of the all-American, white picket fence life come true, and the girl to go with it. Sad to tell, though, I put her through hell with my drinking. She was the perfect co-dependent. She always put me back together to go to work the next day."

While visiting the Northwest, David discovered he liked cooler weather, and began lobbying for a transfer. His first job here was as merchandise manager for the Puyallup store. "I found the problems up here were a piece of cake compared to California. We are much less competitive here. People here like to work, and I did well. When Target opened a store in West Seattle in 1990, they made me the manager. But there were problems from the get-go." He only lasted three years before he was fired. David blames racisim. "I was the only black executive in this area."

He considered filing a discrimination suit, but "we immigrant families don´t do things like that. We learn the system and learn to work within the system. If you´re born with one leg, you learn how to move. I was born with black skin, so I´ve learned how to live with that fact and navigate through life safely. My anger is more toward the system. Racism has nothing to do with color. It has everything to do with power. Color is a convenient hat rack. Someone hits you with a stick, you´re going hurt, and I´ve been hit with my share of sticks. But what are you going to do? You have get a job and work, and figure out ways to do that."

While still in San Bernardino, on Aug. 8, 1986, David had reluctantly joined A.A. "There was no burning bush, just an awareness that my drinking was out of control. I called my brother, who´d always been an angry drunk, ´cause he seemed to be a changed man. Turned out he was in the program, and he 12-stepped me into sobriety. He told me to look up A.A.´s phone number, and I did. "When I walked into that first meeting, I´ll never forget it. It seemed like everyone had this light on them. I felt I was on to something good that I wanted more of. I never picked up another drink." He was a long way from serenity, though. "I was a dry drunk. I couldn´t trust God. I hadn´t taken the third step ["Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood Him"] For months and months, I did the A.A. grunt work, studied the Big Book, went to workshops, but my heart was not In it. But then, my heart started opening. There was something in my heart besides me. That line in the Big Book that says deep inside, we all have a fundamental love of God stuck in my mind. I wanted to believe, and gradually I did. Then one day I walked into a Catholic church and sat down. The feeling that came over me was like that first A.A. meeting."

Question: "So you came back into the fold?"
Answer: "I was never in the fold, but I am now."

David did a lot of service work in Southern California, "but when I came up here, I was a vagabond for the first few years-didn´t plug in anywhere. Then I discovered Tacoma had more black people going to meetings there. I liked that. It´s nice not to be the only one. I became the literature person and helped to institute signing programs for the deaf. Those meetings have survived and grown."

Eventually, David moved his A.A. north to Federal Way, where Federal Way Stag is his home group. He also enrolled at University of Washington to finish his degree. For two years, he worked nights and went to school during the day, emerging with a bachelor´s degree in business administration in 1996. "3.3 GPA," he said proudly.

He´s also been a member of Al-Anon for 10 years. It´s helped him to understand alcoholism from the other side of the fence, even though it did not save his marriage. He credits Al-Anon and A.A. with saving his life when he was overwhelmed with health problems from the stress of his marriage collapse.

For the past three years, David has been a driver for Metro´s Access buses for the disabled. "It fits in well with my interest in the handicapped," he said. He´s also moonlighting as a math teacher, something he´s trying to build into a business.

But his primary business is sobriety. "A.A. means that as long as I´m willing, there will always be a place for me to go that makes sense and makes my life worthwhile."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.