Lee Stringer is a writer (Wow! Is he ever a writer), a lecturer, a teacher and a recovering crack addict. He is the author of 3 books, “Grand Central Winter”, “Sleepaway School”, and “Like Shaking Hands with God”, which will be presented one by one when I can find enough accolades to accommodate them. While you are waiting, sample this appetizer.

A Miracle on 14th Street

In may of 1997 I threw in the towel. After 12 years at it I’d had enough of sucking on a crack pipe, enough of hustling the streets, enough of the endless cyclical ellipse of blasting up, crashing down and plodding through the agony of waiting out the in between. I went down to the Project Renewal residential treatment center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to check myself in. As I pushed through the doors–knowing there had been no engraved invitation for me to come and share the benefit of my wisdom, knowing that I had all but crawled there, wanting to get off crack, realizing I couldn’t do it alone and praying the people inside knew what they were doing–I resolved to shut my trap, listen to what I was told and do what was asked of me.
The first year’s free, they say. Pink cloud time. You’re so thrilled that you’re no longer spinning in desperate circles that you practically float on air. I didn’t buy this right off. But then one day, it was suddenly true.
I had seven months in. Christmas was just around the corner. The streets of New York were decked out in festive holiday drag. And for the first time since I can’t remember when, just walking around in life was a thing of joy. I found myself humming under my breath as I emerged from the subway, headed for the the famous 14th Street rooms.
They told me that in order to stay clean I needed to “make meetings.” This didn’t thrill me when I heard it. Somehow in the way of things, I had been imbued at a very young age with the expectation of living in a miraculous world. It grieved me to no small end to then grow up seeing so little evidence of this. And I think my grinding disappointment over that is what in part drove me to drugs. To this day there is something within me which is steadfast in refusing to settle for less. That bristles at anything smacking of the mundane. As far as I was concerned, sitting through any kind of meeting fell decisively into that category.
But this was recovery.
Work the program.
Take suggestions.
Do as the sober people do.
I went to a meeting.
Five minutes into it I heard something for which, though I could never put a finger on it prior to then, I supremely thirsted for so long: The sound of people who’d stopped kidding themselves. The sound of people who’d stopped fronting and who took solace in revealing their weakness and pain. I doubt if there is anything else so profoundly attractive as people being totally honest about themselves.
I kept coming back.
So there I was. Seven months clean. Psyched up on Christmas. Sitting in a 12-step meeting. Loving every minute of it. When they guy leading the meeting asks if anyone has a “burning desire” to share, my hand shoots skyward. I identify myself as a grateful recovering addict and tell everyone how for the last twelve years of my life my number one job had been to stay as high as I could.
“As a matter of fact,” I tell them, “I’m high right now. Been high since I got up this morning.”
There is a murmer of whispers when I announce this. A few people shift uncomfortably in their seats. Someone coughs.
“The thing is though,” I go on, “I haven’t touched anything stronger than a multivitamin in seven months. I’m high just because it’s Christmas. I’m high today just from being alive.”
I go on like this for a few minutes then sit back down.
The next guy gets up, looks at me.
“Me too,” he says and launches into a merry story about something positive that happened between him and his neighbor. When he sits down, another person similarly chimes in. Then the next. Everyone in the room, it seems, has been swept up in the same spirit.
But then it falls to a woman perched, as always, in the back row. I have seen her there brooding through the hour more than once. I’ve heard her share a few times too. And from what she has said I understand why she was a drunk. They say alcoholics are like tea bags. That they work best when they are in hot water. This woman fit the profile exactly. Whenever she shares it is a litany of every thing wrong with her life. Of everything wrong with the next persons life. Of everything wrong with life itself. If she has to, she’ll scour the dailies for some grave tragedy somewhere in the world and glom onto the misery it portends. It’s no wonder she had to drink.
“You, guys are all full of some kind of shit,” she scolds, sneer rising nearly to her nostril. “What the fuck is there to be happy about? Are you all deaf, dumb and blind? Do you have any idea of what’s going on in the world?”
She then proceeds to tick off each and every rhyme and reason why she, the people in the room, the people of the world and God Himself could not possibly have reason to be happy.
“Happy? Just because it’s freakin’ Christmas? Give me a fuckin’ break. You want honesty?” she says, voice rising with each word.” I’ll give you honesty. You guys make me SICK! Sitting here listening to you sing on about how GREAT this is and how WONDERFUL you all feel. While I’m sitting here PISSED THE FUCK OFF BECAUSE ALL I WANT IS TO HAVE A GODDAMN DRINK AND I CAN’T HAVE ONE!”
In the sudden silence that follows I can hear the ventilation system breathing it’s dry breath. The guy running the meeting pulls in a lung full of it. Gets to his feet.
“You sound great!” he gushes, eyes lit up like Christmas lights.
What the hell is wrong with this guy? I say to myself. Didn’t he hear what she just said? But then, in the very next moment, I get it. Here was a woman who for the better part of her miserable life could not get out from under the next drink. Now here she was, sitting in a meeting simply complaining about not being able to. A difference so monumental I do not know how I had missed it at first.
This taught me two lessons. It taught me that sometimes there is difference between how you’re doing and how you feel. It taught me too that it is indeed a miraculous world. Miracles happen all the time. You just have to be able to see them.