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Drugs other than alcohol were a big part of Jim P.´s life as a drunk.

He started out like everyone else, with alcohol--in his case, beer--and graduated to vodka as he got into his teens. (That first beer drunk was when he was eight years old.)

"I was one credit short of my welding degree at the old Edison Tech when I got the mumps," he said. "I never did go back. By now, I was drinking every weekend, and sometimes during the week. I was working as an ironworkers apprentice in 1966 when I expanded into Acapulco Gold. It got me high, and I said to myself, ´This will help me feel like I fit in somewhere.´ From weed, I got into speed, mescaline, acid, you name it.

"Life changed. I was running around with people who used a lot of drugs, and drinking too. Me, I liked to mix ´em. Everything I did, I always found a way to stay loaded."

So today, with 19 years of sobriety under his belt-his sobriety date is Jan. 13, 1991-what does Jim think about incorporating discussion of non-alcohol drugs into A.A,. meetings?

"I like to keep the stories focused around alcohol," Jim said. "I don´t believe we should change the rules. Carrying the message about alcohol and Singleness of Purpose should remain our main focus.

"It´s true. Drugs are part of my story, but if I mention that, I try to keep it general. I don´t go into detail.

"A.A. really changed into the Vietnam era, but the rules never did. I don´t run into many people who are just about drugs or just about alcohol. But A.A. does not need to change. There are other programs for other people."

Jim was a kid in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, where his father was a roofer who had converted his dairy barn into a tavern on weekends. "I was around alcohol my whole life," Jim said. "As a kid, when I was thirsty, I´d run in and grab whatever was closest, usually beer. I was probably eight or nine the first time I got drunk.

"Life was lonely and fearful," says the guy who later tried to make friends by being the toughest kid on the playground. "There was always a lot of yelling and screaming. Dad was drunk and Mom was unhappy. It seemed like there was always a lot of anger. When Dad wasn´t drunk, he was unhappy.

"One time, he got a junk yard dog to protect the bootleg supplies behind the bar. I couldn´t put my hand anywhere near him. But you know, that dog finally became my best friend. When we were moving out here, Dad wanted to give the dog away. The dog and I hid under the car as long as we could, but Dad yelled and threatened ´til I finally gave it up."

The family moved to Seattle, hoping a change of scene would make life better. "Nothing changed," Jim said, "just the location. Our relatives out here were partying all the time. I remember thinking I got tied up in the wrong family. We moved to Beacon Hill, then to Arbor Heights. I still had no friends. Nothing changed."

They moved back to Minnesota for awhile when his father bought a grocery store in Hamel. "Mom hated it there, but Dad´s drinking did slow down. I was running around with a lot of kids who were getting into trouble, so maybe it was a good thing we moved back here to stay.

"But my drinking got worse-Denny Middle School, West Seattle High School. I never felt like I fitted in. I tried to fight my way into being respected, but it didn´t work out.

"We had a neighbor who bought me vodka, and when I got that glow, I knew it was going to make me right. But I left West Seattle High when I got busted for drinking."

From there, it was learning the welding trade at Edison Vocational, and even though he didn´t graduate, welding became his life´s career. "I worked for PACCAR, Issacson Steel, Leckenby Steel, and Boeing, and I always found a way to come to work loaded. At Issacson, we were building steel building foundations for the Alaska pipeline. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Those extra hours were double time, so I made a lot of money, but I drank it all away.

"Not everybody, but lots of us, drank on that job. One of the guys had a ´fridge in the back of his truck that kept us all supplied at 4 o´clock in the morning. Luckily, no one was ever killed, but I came close when the block on a crane snapped and took off the end of my fourth finger.

"All this time, the drinking and drugging were getting worse. I was selling drugs to try to pay for my habit, but I never broke even."

As life spun more and more out of control, Jim began to have trouble with the law. He beat his first DWI by serving as his own attorney and persuading the judge that the state patrolman had made a mistake. But the second one cost him his license for a year and a requirement to attend alcohol school in Renton. His counselor didn´t believe Jim was serious about sobriety, and that was certainly true.

He got a third DWI and a "sentence" to go to A.A. meetings for a year, but beat that rap by signing on for a 28-day inpatient treatment program. "I got drunk just before I went in, and took a bag of weed with me into the center. Treatment was okay as long as the weed lasted, but I got antsy toward the end when the weed ran out. Friends helped me make it through with smuggled cocaine and weed.

"When I got out, I didn´t drink for three weeks, but I had no conviction that alcohol was a problem so I started up again, and was shooting cocaine heavily at the same time. The low point was when I got married. I´d always said I´d never be like my dad, but my wife and I were fighting all the time. I left when she was in the hospital having our daughter.

"That was the first time I had any thought that booze and drugs were not working for me. When we were getting divorced, I wanted to show the court I was squeaky clean, so I started going to A.A. again. I got a Big Book, but I was ashamed to have people seeing me reading it ´cause I really didn´t have a problem."

He didn´t´ really begin getting the program until he went to Pass It On in Burien, and that became, and still is, his home group. Jim never had any sudden awakening, but over the months and then the years, Alcoholics Anonymous became the central focus of his life. After 19 years, he still goes to a dozen meetings a week.

"Right from the start, we started going to hospitals and treatment centers. My first was the Indian Center." Then St. Martin de Porres, Lutheran Compass Center, and Union Gospel Mission, where he founded a meeting and chaired it for three years.

The late Angus L. was a big influence in Jim´s life. "He and a bunch of us started meetings at Highline Hospital. For 12 years, I was in the Hospital and Treatment Committee, ´til Angus suggested it was time to rotate out.

"That´s how I got going with the Corrections Committee. Six of us started meetings at the Federal Detention Center and moved on from there to Kent Regional Justice. I´m the chair of the committee, and am rotating out this year."

Jim´s is still loyal to his first love, Hospital and Treatment. He chairs a Sunday meeting at Highline Hospital and another at the counseling center in Jefferson Square.

Sobriety hasn´t been all peaches and cream. Jim had a heart attack in 2002 while he was working out at his gym. When Medic One arrived, they took a look at him and said, "Yep, we got a keeper." A stint was installed at Harborview and he´s feeling fine these days. He´s the caregiver for his 84-year-old mother.

It was a long, resistant road to sobriety for Jim, but it´s his whole life now. "A.A. comes down to the quality of life, not the quantity" he said. "I´m a changed person who believes in God through a program hat has given me a life far beyond what I´d ever hoped to experience. I tell everyone, ´You get out of A.A. what you put into it. Stay close to it and A.A. will never let you down. The person I am will never drink again."

Interviewing and writing by Dick S.