Talk about clout! How does this grab you? Robert G. was newly sober, living across the street from the old Big Hall on Pine Street in a studio apartment. Two months later, he was managing the 18-unit building, owned two pickup trucks and was hiring people from the Hall to do maintenance work. "I was never stupid," he said. "I´d always been ambitious and now there was no stopping me."

Except for his sponsor, who didn´t like the look of all that activity. "You´re doing too much too fast," he told Robert. "Material things got you in trouble in the past and you´re headed that way again."

So Robert sold everything and started over. Now, that´s sponsor clout!

Robert sobered up at King County´s late lamented Cedar Hills Treatment Center. Cedar Hills closed Oct. 15 of this year because of budget cuts. Robert counts his sobriety from Feb. 10, 1984. He got to that point only after careening through four treatment programs in Taos, New Mexico, and Denver. His fifth and final program was Cedar Hills.

A cousin brought him to Seattle from a treatment program in New Mexico. He got work as a laborer, but couldn´t hold a job and wound up living at the Morrison Shelter in downtown Seattle.

"They took me dying from there to Harborview, where I was sent to Cedar Hills for 60 days. That was the winter of ´83-´84, and I count my sobriety from that time."

Robert didn´t start serious drinking and drugging until he moved from Taos to Denver after his graduation from high school in 1962. "Denver was the big time. It fascinated me." But his substance abuse problems got progressively worse as he married, had two children and developed a reputation as a womanizer as well as a drunk. The marriage ended after six years and set in motion a lifetime of estrangement from his three sons which he has not yet been able to overcome. It also contributed to his financial woes. More about that later.

"I was a laborer and a jack of all trades. I also became a habitual offender, to the point that the judge told me that ´any judge who opens this record and smells alcohol is going to send you straight to the penitentiary.´ I tried to beat the system by moving to Albuquerque, but I had the same problems there so I came to Seattle."

Robert, who´s Mexican-American, said he was well aware of his problem before he got here, but was too proud and too full of machismo to do anything about it. Cedar Hills changed that for him, and changed his life. "I loved that place. It broke my heart to see it go down. I did a lot of soul searching while I was there. It was part of the treatment program."

When he graduated, he signed up for an aftercare program that kept a roof over his head while he went to a meeting every day and every night at the Big Hall, Fremont and Easy Does It. The dances which were a fixture of AA in that era helped him too. "I made good friends that way."

Though Spanish-speaking, Robert never limited himself to Spanish-speaking meetings. He had a sponsor at La Esperanza, but he had sponsors at two other meetings too.

After a year of sobriety, Robert began training as a substance abuse counselor. He has earned an associate of arts degree at Seattle Central Community College and is working on a bachelor´s degree. He began his counseling career in 1987 at the Salvation Army, and the next year moved on to his present job as a staff alcohol and drug counselor at Central Area Recovery Center, 464 12th Ave., Seattle.

Working with drug addicts and alcoholics helps him stay sober, Robert said. He works with street alcoholics and addicts in Pioneer Square and the detox center. He´s also involved in a housing program called Shelter Plus Care, which has three clean and sober houses. He also does group and individual counseling at the Recovery Center.

Now 59, Robert has spent many years putting his life back together. No sooner was he hired in his present job than the child support authorities from Denver came calling. He´d never paid a cent while he was running around the West, "drinking, being crazy, insane," so the back due was huge--$30,000. IRS came calling about the same time, looking for $600.

"I felt like running again," Robert said, but instead, he signed over most of his check and squared himself with the government. But the child support took longer-12 years, in fact. He made his final payment last year.

"It was a struggle all those years. I got a loan to pay off the Denver obligation, and I´m still paying on that but I´m managing okay. It will be paid off by the middle of next year."

In a pained acknowledgment, Robert said the children of that marriage, now adults, are total strangers. He has tried to make contact in recent years, but without success. It´s a happier story with two other sons by a different relationship. With sobriety, he has been able to overcome the past. These young men now visit periodically. "I´m proud of them. They´ve stayed away from drugs and alcohol. They´re both married and have their own families."

Budget cutbacks which are devastating area treatment programs are a cause of great concern to Robert. But he intends to soldier on until local government overcomes its mania for cutting the budgets of vital social programs.

Meanwhile, he and his new wife are enjoying their mini-farm on the Skykomish River, where they raise chickens, lambs, peacocks, two dogs and four cats. He´s also an enthusiastic hobbiest-car racing and fishing.

"Life is good, but it´s going to get better when we can restore some of the programs that have been shut down," he said.

Interviewed and written by Dick S.