Fifteen years ago, Richard I. decided vodka at night and hangovers all day were no way to live, so he walked into the basement of the 63rd St. YMCA in Manhattan and joined Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sort of. He went to two meetings a week. But he didn´t like what he heard. He didn´t work the Steps. He didn´t like any of his sponsors. One wasn´t smart enough, another wasn´t good enough, another didn´t stick around long enough to help him. "It was always the sponsor´s fault that the program wasn´t working for me," Richard said. The only real plus was something he heard at his first meeting. "This low bottom drunk said, ´I got drunk again and found my new bottom was lower than the old one.´ I never forgot that."

He managed to keep away from the bottle for the remaining year he spent in New York, and continued the dry drunk for five more years after he moved to Seattle in 1994. But all those dry years, he never forgot how good the booze had tasted. The desire never left, just the alcohol.

Then one evening he was in a Chinese restaurant here and "by accident" took a sip of beer. "I can handle this," he thought, and took a second sip. Nothing more happened for two days, when he drank another beer. "Three weeks later, I was buying vodka again, and in a month, I was drunk every day."

It took another six years for Richard to get back to the program, but "A.A. had put a turd in my drinking." And so, on St. Patrick´s Day 2005. he came back, and has been a hardworking member ever since.Now he is the newly minted treasurer of Seattle Intergroup,

Richard had many a trip around the block before finding his niche in Seattle, He was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, where his father was a resident psychiatrist at the local women´s prison. He was still little when the family-he has two brothers-moved to Detroit, where he grew up. He was at Mumford High School in northwest Detroit during the changes wrought by school desegregation in the late ´60s, and his memories of high school are therefore mixed. "It became a tough school," Richard said, but he stayed with it and got his diploma.

That time of his life was doubly tough because his mother died of cancer when he was only 13. He still misses her. "It was a protracted process, very painful. As a young teenager, I didn´t know how to handle it. I made a bargain with God: If I could do some magical task like hold my breath for a full minute, God would reward me by bringing her back to life. It was my attempt to correct what was so wrong. Even today, every death is an opportunity to grieve again. It´s not a negative thing. It´s an opportunity to sympathize with loved ones."

Richard went off to the University of Michigan´s Experimental College after high school. A scholarly guy, he decided to study Mandarin Chinese and in 1973 spent a year in Taiwan using his new tool and doing graduate study in Chinese wines. One of his favorites-but he liked them all-was Green Leaf, made of green leaves and rice. He was living with a Chinese family and drinking to excess secretly in his room.

Why secretly? "I was ashamed. I knew I was drinking too much."

This was the early ´70s, a time of great intellectual ferment on the U.S, and, apparently, in Taiwan too. The Beats and their literature, even though they had peaked 15 years earlier, were much discussed. Nixon opened the U.S. to China while Richard was in Taiwan, a sensational development that only a conservative could have pulled off. Richard wanted to go on to China himself, but somehow never made it. He´s finally going this fall, on a "If this is Shanghai, it must be Tuesday" tour. "It will be a gas to use my Chinese after all these years," he said.

When China opened up, Richard had dreams of riches as an exporter. "A billion people wanting to buy our stuff!" Unfortunately, he was 15 or 20 years ahead of the curve and the idea never went anywhere. So he came back to the U.S. and got a second degree, in library science, at the University of Michigan. To use his language skills, he became the city librarian in Chicago´s Chinatown, working primarily with immigrants who spoke no English. "It was mostly social service work," Richard recalled-where to vote, where to get Food Stamps. "Books on martial arts and entertainment, and comic books, were the most popular."

Off work, he was a heavy-drinking party animal. He also found the time and energy to go to the University of Chicago at night for a master´s in business administration.

His plan was to go to Wall Street and become "a hot shot New York banker." He actually made the move in 1981 when he was 28, but it didn´t work out as he had hoped. He worked deep in the bowels of two major banks as transferring bearer bonds and other documents. He still speaks with amazement at the casual way these valuable pieces of paper were moved around Wall Street, often by messengers towing luggage racks. Security was non-existent.

He was married for two years, but it didn´t last. Most of his energy went into drinking. "I drank privately to excess every night till I fell into a stupor. Mostly wine, and later vodka. I needed a pint a day for maintenance. But you know, I was always a high bottom drunk, even though it felt like low bottom. I was hung over every day."

That went on for five years, when he caught on as a consultant for a big insurance broker. "It was an exciting life, traveling to exotic places all over the U.S.-like Fargo, North Dakota."

It was in this phase of his life, still living in Brooklyn, that he made his first run at A.A. Still looking for the main chance, he moved to Seattle in 1994 to try his hand as a tea entrepreneur. He founded Stonerose Tea in his kitchen, marketing to trade shows and advertising in trade journals. He did the mixing himself, and produced four lines that went over well only to be greeted with the question, "What else do you have?" After two years, he decided it wasn´t working out and took a job with a health insurance company here. In 1998, he also left A.A.

His next job, a great one, he says, was with a wireless phone company. That lasted for five years, till the company was sold and he was out on the street. He decided to get a CPA, and did so. It was the discovery that studying and vodka were a poor mix that led him back to A.A. in 2005. His new skill also led to the job he now holds, chief operating office of a large non-profit which specializes in emotional learning and violence prevention. Their educational materials are sold all over the U.S.

Richard jumped into service work with both feet when he came back to A.A.. He credits Ken H. with locking him back in by asking him to become the secretary of a Concepts meeting early on. "I probably wouldn´t have stuck if it weren´t for that. We were reading the Concepts. I learned how A.A. makes decisions, how it all works." A path through the A.A. bureaucracy, in other words. "Ken kind of tricked me into learning about A.A.," Richard said.

He got a sponsor, attends four or five meetings a week, has a home group of which he became treasurer, answers phones at Intergroup and for Nightwatch, and was recently elected treasurer of the Intergroup Board. He is the GSR for a 7 a.m. Saturday meeting called High and Dry. "Sometimes, there´re more dogs than people there," he remarked.

It´s all to a purpose, protection of his sobriety. "I get into trouble when I´m by myself. I´ve learned that I can´t live just for me. It´s good to be back."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.