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Where do you start with this guy? Terrific phrasemaker, survivor of two near-death experiences, Navy photographer, disabled marathoner-shall I go on?

Phrase-making is a good place to start. I first met Les D. at the Oldtimers Lunch May 2, where he was called on to speak in honor of his 35 years of sobriety. "God gave me mercy instead of justice," Les told the crowd.

Later, describing the head-on motorcycle accident that nearly took his life, Les said of the A.A. members who were at his side in the hospital 24/7, "They loved me back to life." Two of his nurses sobered up during his 3 ½ months in the hospital. Les´ comment? "I told God this was not the way I´d planned to do 12 Step work." And finally: When everyone else at a meeting winds up the Serenity Prayer with "Keep Coming Back. It Works," Les always adds "….it works in spite of me."

Les was born and raised in the Seattle area, but lived all over the world until coming home to Bellevue this February. He says he had his first drink when he was four years old, "when I chugged a whole beer my dad gave me. After that, I´d drink whatever was in the house. I got a car when I was 16 and set up a bar in the back seat." When he was 17, Les joined the Naval Reserve, which gave him a uniform and unquestioned service in the bars he frequented. .

Les served 16 years in the Navy and another brief stint in the National Guard. Trained as a Navy photographer at Pensacola, "I drank a lot, got in trouble a lot, chased women a lot. I was engaged six times before I finally got married in Pensacola." The marriage didn´t last, but produced a son and a daughter.

All that alcohol couldn´t cope with his depression. He attempted to kill himself when he was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia by taking a lethal dose of a half case of beer and 30 antabuse pills.

"That´s what got me sober," Les said. The Navy put him in an eight-week treatment program that was based on A.A. "They took us through all 12 of the Steps. We had two or three meetings during the day on the base, and every night off the base-10 meetings a week for eight weeks. I wanted to stay longer. It was a safe environment."

But he stayed sober on the outside anyway, from, as he says, "April Fool´s Day 1975" until the present.

Once out of the service, Les became an alcohol and drug counselor. He was following that profession in Forks, Washington, when he was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident. Les was a member of the Alky Angels, the nationwide bikers´ club. He was en route to an Alky Angels potluck in Aberdeen when a car made a left turn in front of him. His bike hit the car head-on at 55 miles an hour.

He told the emergency medical technicians who were trying to keep him alive to call the Aberdeen Alano Club. "They beat the EMTs to the hospital," Les said. He suffered a broken pelvis, multiple breaks in one arm and four separated vertebrae. The nerves in his left leg were severed; "I was paralyzed. My front leg muscles were totally useless."

Les had two near-death experiences. It happened first on the highway immediately after the crash. Les was looking down at the accident scene, yelling at the technicians that the bone was sticking out of his arm. Actually, he was silent, unconscious. The second event occurred on the operating table. .

""That´s when I felt myself going through a tunnel to the light. When I got almost to the light, I was stopped and a voice said I could go no further, that I had to go back to the world. I asked the voice if I hadn´t suffered enough already, and it said no, I still had work to do. That made me mad at God. It was so peaceful.".

While in the hospital, there were A.A. members at Les´ beside day and night. Four days after the accident, he regained consciousness. .

"That accident was one of the best things that ever happened to me," Les said, "right up there with getting sober." He spent "3 ½ solid months in traction in the hospital. People would bring meetings to me."

Alcohol counselor was too much to deal with when he left the hospital, so he went back to college and earned a bachelor´s degree in business and a master´s in psychology. Academia was not for him, though. With his new lease on life, he was determined to make the most of it. He learned to ski on one leg and became a ski instructor at Snoqualmie, teaching both disabled and able people to ski. He went on to win the handicapped downhill competition on Mt. Hood in 1986.

That same year, he was the first disabled person to complete the Emerald City Marathon. There was nobody around except the timekeeper and a reporter when he crossed the finish line, but finish he did. And then there was skydiving in Issaquah.

Les has lived in a lot of places since his accident. While he was in the Philippines, he met his second wife while recuperating from a hip replacement. "She took care of me, and has been taking care of me ever since," he said gratefully.

Though he walks with the help of two canes, Les is eager for new challenges. He wants to get sponsees, answer phones at Intergroup and take a shift on Nightwatch. He´s also looking for a home group.

A.A. has been a huge part of his life for 35 years, and he says that will never change.

Interviewing and writing by Dick S.