It seems like I can’t go anywhere in Greenwich without running into somebody from the Program. At the dry cleaner, at Whole Foods, at Pizza Post—you name it, there they are: the same people who fill the chairs in the church basements across our town and listen intently to the day’s speaker talking about “how it was, what happened, and how it is now.” Even the coach at my kid’s baseball practice, for Chrissakes, is in the Program.

Greenwich, like New York City that it orbits, is a drinking town. As a result, it’s also an AA town. If you’re getting that itch that you shouldn’t scratch and you need a meeting, you came to the right place. Early riser meetings, nooners, rush hour meetings, evenings – we’ve got you covered.

I took my kid to the Greenwich Town Party, and was waiting in line so Carter could jump in the bouncy house in Roger Sherman Park. Wait, who was that in front of us? Yep, it was her: Elizabeth from the nooner at Christ Church. She must have sensed my gaze because she looked over her shoulder. She caught my eye and gave me a barely perceptible nod, but said nothing despite being only a couple of feet away. That was the protocol. Once our kids were jumping in the bouncy house, we moved aside a few yards and made sure there was nobody else within earshot. God forbid someone should ask how we knew each other. Now we could talk.

“You doing OK?” she asked.

“Yeah, doing alright,” I replied, looking at my feet.

“How much time you got now?”

I fingered the 30-day token that I keep in my pocket. “Thirty-three days now,” I said, a bit sheepishly. I knew she had two years. I’ve gone in and out of the Program over that time so I felt like thirty-three days wasn’t much to be proud of.

“Just keep on truckin’,” she said with a thin smile.

“I will. See you in the Rooms.”

You wouldn’t have known it from our awkward exchange, but I was privy to every intimate, tawdry detail of this woman’s life. Molested by her dad, car crashes, arrests, psych ward, divorce, bankruptcy. I’d listened to her sharing her story a few times.

The names and places vary, but the substance is nearly the same for each and every one of us.

“What you hear here, let it stay here.”

Oh yeah, and did I mention redemption? That’s the whole idea, the whole point of so many hours spent in the basement, in the Rooms. The happy ending. “A life beyond my wildest dreams” someone always says. I wish I had a buck for each time I’ve heard that. It’s just that I haven’t gotten there yet.

Yesterday, at the nooner, some guy walked in drunk out of his mind. This happens less often than you might expect, given that these meetings are actually for drunks, whether current or in remission. The guy was ranting and raving, grunting and moaning, crying and contorting himself in his chair. A few people put their arms around him, while most of the rest politely ignored him. Not everyone could stand it—two people left. We’ve all been there, though, some more recently than others. It could be any one of us in an hour or two, if we let our guard down.

So how did all of this begin? It was fun at first. We were all “cutting loose” in New York—a little coke, a lot of vodka.

Everybody was doing it.

It was just barely manageable in the early days, and well accepted—encouraged, even. We all needed something to take the edge off after a long, hard day. How does that country music song go? “Relief is only a mouthful away.” Eventually it became medicine, something to make the anxiety and pain go away; life became unbearable without it. It was still technically manageable, though. Functional. Until one day—suddenly—it wasn’t. Funny how fast things fall apart once they gets started. Takes your breath away.

But I wasn’t supposed to be around for this last part. I always figured I would check out before things got this bad. Turns out that wasn’t as easy as I thought. Our instinct is to live and try to get through it, even through horrible shit like this. My life had been all about hanging on anyway, so why would I not hang on through this part?

But what now? Clear eyes and a clear mind is what I’m left with when I’m sober. It should be great, unless you don’t like what you see so clearly now. Who you’re looking at, crystal clear.

People in the Program talk about the “pink cloud” that you’re supposed to be floating on for the first 90 days. I haven’t felt it. Yet. That voice in my head keeps saying: “Just one drink won’t hurt you, Hank. Come on, you deserve it. It’ll be great—you can forget about the pain, the wreckage, just for a little bit. Come re-join the human race. Be like other people again.”

When I hear that voice in my head, I call my sponsor. I hit the next meeting. Once a day, sometimes twice a day. I listen to the speaker, share if I feel like it, hold hands at the end, say the serenity prayer. I listen to the old-timers, a few of them who have been coming ever day since 1986 or 1992, smoking outside. “All I do is, I don’t take a drink,” I repeat to myself. See you at the next one, I say. We all part, and in between we see each other at the dry cleaners, at the library with our kids, at Sunday church in the pews, at practice, at Garelick & Herbs or on Greenwich Avenue. And we nod, ever so slightly, and keep on going.

COVID update: In light of the increase in addiction and relapses since the COVID-19 pandemic began, visit this resource for alcohol rehab and treatment.