Joe Pisani (opinion): For 45 years, lives were saved in basement of CT church – Greenwich Time

Trinity Lutheran Church in Shelton, with its spire rising against the blue sky above the Housatonic River and its striking red entrance, was a familiar sight when I was growing up, so I was sad to read the headline, Wonderful memories: Shelton church closing doors after 123 years. You see, I had wonderful memories of my own.

Its sad it came to this point, longtime member Carol Del Sole told Shelton Herald reporter Brian Gioiele.

Her family joined the church 60 years ago when she was a young girl, and now there were only a dozen members left, who would be merging with Immanuel Lutheran Church in Oxford.

The pews were packed, she recalled. There were so many families, Sunday school, youth group, a childrens choir, Christmas fairs, mother-daughter days

There are many other wonderful memories she probably didnt know about. Every week for 45 years, men and women, including my father, went to a Shelton Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the church basement, where its no exaggeration to say their lives were saved.

Countless people have their own wonderful memories of their path from drunkenness and despair to a sober life and their Higher Power.

My father went through those doors for the first time when he was 50 years old. It was where he got sober after decades of alcoholic drinking. He lived his last 25 years sober, which for a drunk is a monumental achievement one day at a time.

We were all sure his life was coming to a premature end after a lifetime of booze and a succession of debilitating health problems caused by drinking. In many ways, we were as sick as him because we suffered from the associated traumas brought about by family disputes and emotional abuse and stress. Sometimes Im still haunted by childhood memories of unprovoked insults and beatings.

He was a great guy until he picked up a drink. When he came home from work, he started hitting the Melrose or the Canadian Club, depending on what was on sale at the package store. Hed sit in his Barcalounger with a glass full of whiskey on one side and a 16-ounce can of Budweiser on the other.

Eventually, hed pass out, and we had to wake him up for dinner, a chore no one wanted because you never knew what kind of mood hed be in. He was a mean, miserable SOB when he was drunk.

When he finally hit bottom, we didnt expect him to live and we certainly didnt think he could ever stop drinking until a bunch of unassuming guys from the Shelton group started taking him to AA meetings.

They told him, You are not alone. (He may have found that thought comforting, but I was absolutely horrified to think there were others out there like him.)

In the months and years that followed, they pulled him out of his despair and saved him from a certain death sentence. Life got better a day at a time.

In later years, he would often say, AA didnt open up the gates of heaven to let me in, but it sure opened up the gates of hell to let me out.

My father became the coffee-maker for the Shelton group and eventually chaired the meeting. Until then, he didnt know how to boil water, but after that, hed get up every morning and put a pot of coffee on the stove for the rest of us.

He changed in other ways too, but most importantly, he became the good man he was always meant to be.

When his grandchildren visited, they would rush to see him still sitting in his Barcalounger and he always had a treat or trinket for them.

Instead of whiskey and beer, he had a cup of coffee, his AA Big Book and his Twenty-four Hours a Day devotional beside him. Those final years gave him an entirely new life. There was joy, there was hope, there was goodness.

They dont keep records in AA because its an anonymous program, and they dont give certificates or hold graduations because sobriety is a lifelong pursuit, so well never know how many thousands of lives were saved in that church basement.

However, Im certain a lot of men and women walked through those doors defeated and found something rare in our age called hope. They learned to live sober. They learned they have a Higher Power watching over them. They learned never to doubt the possibility of miracles.

You could say AA gave my father a second chance. I can only express heartfelt gratitude to the people at Trinity Lutheran who provided that space for so long, and I wish them well.

And Dad, wherever you are and I hope its the good place (Im sure its the good place) take it a day at a time even in eternity.

Former Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time Editor Joe Pisani can be reached at joefpisani@yahoo.com.

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Joe Pisani (opinion): For 45 years, lives were saved in basement of CT church - Greenwich Time