Many of the newcomers to this group never had the chance to know Nemorino - Nemo as he was affectionately called.  He was here when I got to this group and learned so much from him.  Even back then (2004-2005), he was an old-timer.

He was a great storyteller and here is my favorite.

When I was sober about three months I was finally driving again for the first time in a year and a half. For $600 I had bought me a Subaru station wagon with a barely legal muffler and was living in a state that didn't require insurance, which I couldn't afford anyway. That car got me to AA meetings and that was the whole point. It also had lots of stickers on it, and when I won a "One Day At A Time" bumper sticker in a raffle, it covered two big rust holes on the rear lid very nicely.

After a couple of weeks I got the bright idea that it would be fun to drive up to northern Vermont where I'd lived 20 years before and maybe visit some old friends. The real and devious motive, of course, was to sneak away from the people who had kindly let me in because they knew I was trying to stay sober, and get drunk where they wouldn't see me or hear about it.

By the time I pulled off the interstate in Littleton, NH, I had it all figured out. I mean, you can't pull the wool over the eyes of an ex monk and one-time ace of a barstool theologian, can you? The brilliant and tightly reasoned conclusion I'd arrived at was that the higher power and all that God stuff was just a fairy tale to get newcomers over the hump. After some unknown number of days, a kindly oldtimer would surely take me aside and let me in on this secret that I was sure they were keeping from me-- for my own good, of course. Thought they could fool a savvy old ex Trappist monk, did they? I congratulated myself for having a spiritual edge on these amateurs.

So with my newfound insight it made perfect sense that if I had stopped drinking in January, I could stop again in April or any other time I wanted to. Therefore, I would buy a jug of vodka, check into a motel, get plastered and go back to AA the next day if I didn't like the results.

Yet for some strange reason, my heart was pounding, my breath was shallow and short, my tongue tasted like sandpaper and my palms were sweating so badly that the steering wheel was wet. I stopped in the tiny village of Colebrook for gas, and as I was paying the kid and getting ready to ask him where the nearest liquor store was, the mechanic stepped out of the garage, walked over and said, "I like your bumper sticker, pal."

"Which one?" I asked.

"The one that says 'one day at a time,'" he said.  "We need a speaker tonight at the Coos County Jail, and you've just been elected. It starts at 7:30 and please be on time, or the guards won't let you in."

"Oh shit," I whispered to self under my breath. I had completely forgotten it was there.

But I nodded numbly, and with no further conversation he walked back into the shop. My hand was shaking so badly that I could barely get the key back in the ignition. I looked up at the open sky and said, "You got me."

Instead of drinking that night, I went to the meeting and told the story as I've written it above. That was 23 years ago and I still occasionally have those little epiphanies, those moments of inspired insight when I'm convinced I've found the permanent cure for alcoholism. But they don't last, thank God.

Nemo passed away - sober - a few years back.  I miss him still.