Broken marriages, drunk driving, jail time, estranged kids: so what else is new?

Well, nothing, but against mountainous odds, Ron N. found a solution to his problems 33 years ago when he found Alcoholics Anonymous. It wasn´t easy. He was two years old when his mother died. He was raised by a drunken father whose parental guidance consisted of demanding to know when he was going to learn to drink like a man. "I´m tryin´, Dad," was the dutiful son´s response.

But what´s the definition of drinking like a man? Ron never found out, unless it was the drunk driving conviction that earned him six months in the Los Angeles County Jail, or throwing the dining room table through a window, or living on the streets of Seattle caging cheap beer and Thunderbird. Maybe the three years he spent as a naval air crewman in Korea during the Korean War, "where I learned to drink with the big boys."

Now 70, Ron got his start in the maternity ward of Harborview Hospital June 22, 1933. He´s lived in this area most of his life, except for a brief and disastrous stint in Glendale, California. Trained as a printer, he followed that skilled trade as long as the booze let him. He married and had two children here in Seattle before his drinking prompted his wife to get a divorce and a restraining order.

Ron moved to Glendale and found another wife there. He and his wife had a son before that marriage ended. Throwing the dining room table through the window was apparently one of the reasons, along with his drunk driving conviction. "I thought Scotch would mellow me out, but it didn´t seem to work that way." His wife tried to get him into A.A., to no avail, so she left him and moved to Seattle. Ron followed her, looking for a reconciliation, but she wanted nothing to do with him.

Out of options, going down hill, Ron wound up at the Martin Lewis (now the Bishop Lewis) House. "I had $1.50 in my pocket, a hangover and a head full of guilt," he recalled. "I washed dishes for my room and board. I was still drinking. I broke a hell of a lot of dishes. They were gonna fire me, but decided to give me a break. I finally sobered up there, on July 26, 1967."

That sobriety began with the help of one of the many A.A. members who have played a role in his life. As Ron tells it, he was bending a few at a favorite bar downtown when he met a waitress named Denise. "Cute little thing. I thought she was trying to hit on me. But when we left the bar, where did we go? To the Big Hall and the Alano Club at 915 Pine Street, where she introduced me to her husband. Denise D.was and is a real enthusiastic 12 Stepper." (Editor: Denise was featured in this series in August 1999.)

That was the start of Ron´s career as a sober alcoholic. He joined Group One at the Big Hall "and met lots of good guys there who helped me."

Angus L., who participated in this interview, mentioned that Group One was the meeting where many of Seattle A.A.´s founding fathers were based. Ron remembers with special gratitude the spiritual table chaired by Austin.

Another member of the fellowship, Ralph B., gave him a job in his print shop. He moved into a $30-a-week hotel on Broadway that had, he noted, "both clean sheets AND breakfast." "Pretty soon, I had a car, a driver´s license, and enough money to pay child support. But it took three years to reunite with my children."

What finally prompted Ron to quit drinking?

"Well, I ran out of options. I was a poster boy for alcoholism. I couldn´t work, my health was shot. I´m still dealing with a bad liver, but it´s under control. It´s amazing the amount of punishment we put ourselves through. Like Big Pete said long ago, alcohol is our number one health problem.

"In those early days in the program, I couldn´t read three sentences out of the Big Book and know what they meant. A friend told me he was surprised I was still alive, the way I drank. I was drinking whatever I could get my hands on.

"Lots of the oldtimers helped me out. I surrounded myself with A.A. people and I worked the program like the Big Book tells you. The Fellowship saved my bacon."

With sobriety and good paying printing jobs, Ron´s life improved rapidly. He married again, for the third time, and moved into a large house on Queen Anne Hill. Six years into sobriety, this grateful alcoholic decided he wanted to give something back to A.A., so he took a salary cut to go to work at Cedar Hills as an alcoholic and employment counselor. His Queen Anne house was often full of men in recovery while they were looking for jobs and housing.

After his stint at Cedar Hills, Ron went into business for himself. He´s now semi-retired, but still has his own print shop. Sobriety has lasted, but the marriage didn´t. Ron is now single. He says his problem is that he has never learned how to treat women. But on a happier note, he has re-established good relationships with his children.

Through the years, Ron has sponsored many men in the program. He started the old Denny Park meeting, notable for having a drug table on request to accommodate the growing ranks of druggies in the downtown area. "It was the only place an addict could go and talk at a table," Ron recalled. That´s no longer true. That edition of Denny Park folded, and the current one is a conventional A.A. meeting.

For an oldtimer, though, Ron retains an unusually accepting attitude toward dual abusers. "To me, addiction is addiction. Lots of people get on drugs ´til they start to drink. But when they show up at a meeting, I try to get them aside afterward and suggest they might want Narcotics Anonymous rather than A.A., or maybe both."

Angus asked Ron, with his 33 years of experience in sobriety, what it takes to stay sober. "I think," Ron replied, that sobriety comes from the inside out. You have to have a change of heart."

Today, Ron makes two or three meetings a week, including his home group at Ballard Hospital, where he sponsors "lots of people… This is my life. I would not be alive today were it not for Alcoholics Anonymous. I thank Bill and Dr. Bob for making this thing happen. Thank God for them."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.