Like most people, Michael came to A.A. the hard way. In his case, the threat of losing his job, preceded by a strange spiritual experience. Listen:

"I got off work at 4 a.m. and was walking home down First Avenue. It was stormy and windy; debris was flying everywhere. All of a sudden, I catch a flash of white coming from my left, and a beautiful white owl landed in front of me. He must have thought I was a big rat for his dinner. That guy had a four foot wingspread. When he took off, the wind was so powerful he was suspended in the air 'til he banked and cut the wind resistance. Beautiful!

"A magnificent bird from Alaska in the middle of First Avenue! I went home to Queen Anne and drank myself to sleep. The next morning, I had a couple of eight ounce glasses of vodka to jump start the new day. I was shaking so hard my toothbrush looked like it was electric.

"I went down to my favorite hangout in the Market and was telling the guys about that white owl. That took awhile, so I was even drunker than usual when I got to work that afternoon. It just happened the manager was in the yard and saw I was drunk. He sent me home, and that started the ball rolling to recovery. The white owl helped too, but I didn't learn that 'til later.

"Our company gives you one chance to change. The boss told me the next day I had to go to treatment if I wanted to keep my job. Basically, it was a work intervention. By then, I was at a point in my life when I knew I needed help. Until then, I'd known my drinking wasn't right, but it was survival, the only way I could go to work."

Michael entered treatment on Feb. 7, 1997 and heard of A.A. for the first time. "I read the Big Book and realized there might be something there for me." He has never had a drink since then. One of the counselors in the program was an Indian woman who told him that a white owl across your path is a sign of great change. "I believe now that God stuck that owl in my face to get my attention, to tell me my life would change, because it did change."

Never one to do things halfway, Michael committed himself to 90 meetings in 90 days, and when the 90 days was up, decided to keep going to a meeting every day. He is now nearing 3700 daily meetings since Feb. 7, 1997.

Early on, he almost broke the string in Las Vegas, where he was celebrating his birthday. Time was running out trying to find a 6 p.m. meeting when "I decided to test the program. They'd told me that if you pray for help and really need it, God will answer. No sooner did I start to pray than this guy pulled up beside me and said 'I see you reading an A.A. schedule and you look like you're lost.' He told me the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) meeting that I was looking for was all the way across town. He led me there and I made it by 6. It was another two-by-four upside the head."

Thanks to his newfound sobriety, Michael kept his job as supervisor of the cargo container loading company where he has now worked a dozen years. That takes care of his nights, but his day job is Sobriety on the Streets, a 2 o'clock A.A. meeting at the Matt Talbot/New Hope Center at 2313 Third Ave. Michael, no shrinking violet, says the meeting was dying when he appeared on the scene. "You see, I have a knack for organization," he explained. He concluded the meeting needed a tight and consistent structure for its Monday through Friday schedule. He is there every day and often chairs, but has structured it so that anyone who volunteers can take over.

"I don't like calling on people. We have lots of slip signers (from the courts), a hard core group who might not come back if we call on them. It's a topic format meeting where you can participate to whatever point you want to. We use a topic from the Big Book a hook. Anybody can talk about a subject. It's not as hard as talking about themselves. Topics like anger and resentment give people an opening. I'd say we have over 60 per cent who come back multiple times during the week. Over the last 10 years, I've seen people move from the streets into decent jobs and even go on to college.

"Once we can get 'em to stay and listen, the message of A.A. is powerful enough that the wallflowers begin to bloom and grow. These hopeless, often homeless people come to think that they can change their lives."

Michael was born into an Irish Catholic family-"If God hadn't made whiskey, the Irish would rule the world"-in Topeka, Kansas, the son of a highly decorated World War II Air Corps hero with whom he says he had a "non-existent" relationship. Like all Air Force brats, Michael and his brothers lived all over the world until his parents divorced and his mother moved to Seattle.

He went to Sammamish High School, played football and learned to drink with the boys. At the tender age of 19, he and a friend rehabbed the abandoned Paramount Theater in downtown Seattle and opened it as a concert hall. Within two years, these lads had expanded to theaters in Portland and Fresno, and were looking at the historic Pantages in Los Angeles but never quite pulled that one off.

"It was sex, drugs and rock and roll for the next 23 years," Michael said. Then bankruptcy struck and "I ended up with nothing when I thought I'd have millions." He and a partner ran a bar for a few years before they ran out of money and he signed up with the cargo loading company that has been his career ever since.

With the help of A.A., Michael says he's come from the emotional bankruptcy of shattered dreams of riches and glory to a design for living that has brought him a measure of serenity that continues to grow. He's a contented man.

Interviewed and written by Dick S.