Toni R. grew up in the slums of Brooklyn-"What other part of New York is there?"-but he drank his way out to Seattle in 1961 on what he intended as a trip to Alaska.

Newly married and drinking heavily, he still managed to follow his trade as a surveyor and other jobs until a six-month drunk forced him to call Alcoholics Anonymous. That was Jan. 2, 1966, so Toni will celebrate 40 years of sobriety next month.

Long before that, when he was nine years old, in fact, Toni started his drinking career in Brooklyn, when he drank a rum coke one Christmas Eve. "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," he recalled the other day. "That was the magic ticket."

That early start might explain his being 16 when he was cast out of the sixth grade at his parochial school. Like many Catholic school miscreants, he was enrolled in public school. He lasted a year at PS 17 in Brooklyn before giving up formal education. "I don't know what the inside of a high school looks like."

At the same time, it was "drink, drink, drink-a progression I didn't know was coming." It didn't stop him from finding a job, though. Fresh out of sixth grade, he commuted to Manhattan to a job as a shipping clerk with an outdoor outfitter. That fitted in with his other major interests, hiking and rock climbing in the Catskills. He spent his spare time drinking with the bums on the Bowery. The focus was on beer and whiskey or "whatever was available, except wine. I never drank wine 'cause only alcoholics drank wine." He gave up the Bowery when a drunk, someone he'd never seen before, tried to stab him.

His mother was a dominant force in his life. To keep him morally clean, she tore pictures of nudes out of the encyclopedia. "When mommy takes over, you lose your life,," Tony said. "I was always very passive, addicted to approval. But that's where the past is and that's where it must remain. I live here today and this is the day I take care of."

Toni doesn't like drunkalogues at meetings. He wants to hear about recovery, and wants to talk about his own.

He did a brief stretch in the army in 1952, but got a medical discharge for "pneumonia and a lot of malfunction." Whether that included a drunk he went on one weekend when he went AWOL from the hospital, he didn't say. He checked into a hotel in Richmond, Virginia, stashed his jug in the toilet tank, and "went out to do some drinkin'." He woke up in the French Quarter in New Orleans Saturday morning, and was in Baltimore that night. The next morning, he was back in his hotel room in Richmond with only the haziest of memories of some airline stewardesses. The jug was still in the toilet tank. "It was a short weekend," Toni said.

After his army service, he worked at his father's restaurant for awhile before deciding on his move to the West Coast. As a surveyor, a skill he'd learned from a friend in New Jersey, he could get a job anywhere.

On the drive to Seattle, boozing all the way, he stopped off in Wyoming to climb Grand Teton. "Standing on a one-inch ledge with nothing but air under me--I enjoyed it. It was my first high climb." He made the summit too, 13,700 feet.

He was no novice. From his teenage years, he'd been a hiker and rock climber in the Catskills. "Three hundred foot cliffs of good solid granite. Who could ask for anything more?" Toni said. "I got good. I got very, very good, and when I got to Seattle, I got even better." He was working as a clerk for REI when he was invited to join a climb of K-2, second highest peak in the Himalayas. "My ego went ballistic," but he turned it down. "Base camp is at 16,000 feet there. I was afraid I couldn't handle the altitude, and would have jeopardized the whole expedition."

Toni, now 73 and still a smoker, doesn't climb anymore. His outdoor activities are limited to fly fishing and walking. He says his health is "not the best," because of emphysema, but he's weaning himself off cigarettes. He's now down to six a day. "'Til a year ago, the first thing in the morning was a shot of coffee and a shot of nicotine. Now I wait 'til after breakfast. For some reason, I'm feeling better. I don't know why."

Toni's moment of truth with alcohol came on New Year's Eve in 1961. "It was about 2 in the morning. I had four fingers left in a bottle, and was gonna save half of it for the next day. Instead, I drank the whole thing. I slammed the bottle down and said, 'My God, I can't stop drinking. What am I gonna do?.' And I heard a voice say, 'Call Alcoholics Anonymous,' and that's what I did. That voice was my Lord, my God, though I didn't figure that out until years later.

"When I got off that phone, I thought, 'A.A. How low can you go?' But then I had another thought. I said, 'God, if you can help me, I'll never contaminate my mind and body with alcohol again.' Something happened in that moment. I call it peace. Everything was all right. It took many years on the program to figure out what happened; it was that I found hope."

Toni has no church, though he's looking for one where he feels comfortable. Meanwhile, he is a deeply religious man who reads the Bible every day. He likes the Psalms particularly. Some years ago, he was reading Psalm 138 and came across this passage in Verse 3: "In the day I cried out, you answered and strengthened me and strengthened my soul." "That's what happened that night on the phone. I heard the voice, and I got strength."

Toni's mental condition wasn't too good in those early days of sobriety. He told of an incident when his wife gave him $100 to put it in the bank while she was at work. He had $30 in his wallet, so he figured he'd get $100 worth of Scotch and $30 for cigarettes. He needed a ride, so he invited the lady across the street to take him, in exchange for a bottle. Off they went. The first stop was the bank, and he put all the money in the account. When his driver found out, she kicked him out of the car and he had to walk home.

Things gradually got better. He became a regular at the old Fremont Hall. "Those oldtimers there were real hard core. They gave me a sense of belonging. I felt right at home."

And he became a bit of an A.A. phrase maker. I asked him if he's ever thought of doing some writing, an inspirational book, perhaps.

"I've been asked that a lot of times," Toni said. "What I do is write things on slips of paper. I've got a pile of 'em, but so far what I've ended up with is a bad case of piles. I am intending to write a book, though."

Here's a sample of what he has to draw on:

"Where else on earth than an A.A. meeting can a drunk go and be asked to come back?"

"A.A. is like a tool box. There's a wrench to fit every nut."

"Just shut your mouth and learn something."

"I'm the first person I meet when I wake up in the morning, and if I'm not careful, that can make for a hell of a long day. When I'm alone, I'd better be in good company."

"I call gratitude service work in action. The only way I can express my gratitude is to walk into these meetings sober."

When someone offers me a drink, I don't have to give 'em my resume. I just say, 'No thanks. I've already had enough.'"

"I can't explain it, but a meeting is a good place to be."

"What's the answer when you really want to take a drink? Don't take one!"

""Why do you drink? Because you're an alcoholic. But how about, 'You're an alcoholic because you drink?'"

"When you hit bottom, the only way is up. You reach for the ladder. It's only 12 steps."

"Today's A.A.: instant recovery, just add coffee." "We're getting away from the essence of the program."

"It's what you do when you're alone that really counts."

"I don't live for the moment. I live IN the moment. I want the best hour I can get out of every day."

"All you need is a spark to get in touch with God. Think what a spark can do to a dry forest."

"If nobody steps forward to help at meetings, well, welcome to Nobody Anonymous."

"I never go to a bad A.A. meeting."

As I was going out the door, Toni called after me, "Drive carefully. You might kill a drunk."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.