On a beautiful spring night in 2009, I was driving to a funeral home south of the city, listening to an old cassette tape, a gift from Art L. “My buddy… my buddy,” he crooned. “Your buddy… misses you!” The familiar gruff voice with its approximate pitching brought back a flood of memories. I wondered what had happened to my friend.

Back in the late 80’s and all through the 1990’s, there was no more visible member of our fellowship than Art. Dating from 1987, his was the third-longest sobriety of anyone in our city. He attended every meeting, took on countless service jobs, and made countless phone calls to other members. Sometimes it seemed that Art was the glue that held us all together in fellowship. He was the first to offer his phone number to the newcomer, and to request his in return. In fact, he became known for his vast reservoir of phone numbers. As one wag commented, “There is one who has all numbers—that one is Art.”

Art experienced SA sobriety as a personal blessing, a sign from God that his past was forgiven and that he had a mission to fulfill. The first part of the First Step had a special meaning for him: he was powerless over lust, and lust was the driving force behind his sexual acting out. And since lust was our common problem, how one acted out was irrelevant. In fact, Art used to say that even though he had never acted out with another person, lust had made his life unmanageable and driven him to the rooms of SA.

In a time when same-sex lust was not widely admitted, Art was outspoken about the nature of his addiction. He stated bluntly that it was “lust for men.” In his qualification—what some of us call a “litany”—he spoke about “drinking in men’s faces and voices,” making an explicit connection with the language of Alcoholics Anonymous. He counted “compulsive eating and talking” among his character defects. For me, he was an example of rigorous honesty, and a tough act to follow.

I remember one occasion when Art’s “compulsive talking” was done in the service of SA. In September of 1990, the Monday night group was looking for a new meeting place. Art volunteered to approach the rather grand church across the street from his apartment. As backup, he brought along an unsuspecting newcomer with less than a year’s sobriety—me! I didn’t know what I was getting in for! We were met by the pastor and the entire board of deacons—about twenty in all. As I recall they asked one question—and then Art started talking about SA and never let up. They had to say yes to make him stop. I never got to say a word.

Art was dedicated to carrying the message of SA, the message he said had saved his life and brought him back to God. He monitored the Intergroup phone line. He addressed information letters to doctors and counselors. He organized the Intergroup tape library, placing the tapes in plastic boxes and labeling each one by hand.

But it is as our social secretary that Art will be fondly remembered. Art loved parties and social gatherings, and reveled in the “meeting after the meeting.” At the get-togethers I hosted in my tiny downtown apartment, Art was the first to arrive and the last to leave. For him, after a lifetime of isolation, the “Fellowship of Sobriety” was a precious gift—he couldn’t get enough.

Art was the chair for our Tenth Anniversary Banquet in 1992, when we had our own private “club car” in a restaurant devoted to trains. He loved playing the host. Good food, conviviality, and elegance were combined on that memorable occasion.

I don’t remember whether he sang that night—but he would sing at the drop of a hat. At Christmas time, he would make the rounds of area nursing homes, dressed in a Santa costume, and sing Christmas carols. His message machine had a new song every week (“bypass by pressing the star key”).

Of course, Art’s humor and taste in music didn’t appeal to everyone. It was easy to make fun of his manic way of talking and his off-key humor. He was so vain about his blue contacts and his black toupee! But we who heard him share at meetings knew his commitment to the God of his understanding, and his devotion to SA.

Then in the late 90’s something changed. We began to miss him at meetings. He cut back his schedule to one meeting a week, and then none at all. His friends called, concerned. The weight he had lost had started to creep back, he said, and he didn’t want to be seen. He would come back soon, he assured us. But it was not to be. He moved away from the little apartment across from the church, and got an unlisted phone number. He stopped calling.

That’s all I knew as I drove to his wake that night, 10 years later. I and another member of his old home group were the only friends to sign the guest book. There was a little group waiting for us. I met the people Art called his “second family,” who lived downstairs from his parents when he was a child. In the end, they said, he had isolated even from them, and became a recluse. He had put on weight and stopped shaving. He had died of a heart attack. He was 60 years old.

The body in the casket bore little resemblance to the slim, fastidiously groomed figure I had known. Gone were the colored contacts and the black toupée. I recognized only the religious medal he always wore around his neck.

As I stepped out into the warm spring night, I thought of how lucky I am—lucky to be alive, and free, and sober. And I can live a free man today because when I was ready to quit, there were men already sober in this city who reached out to share their sobriety with me—men like Art L.

He taught me so much. He taught me how to care for people, how to have fun in sobriety, how to throw myself into service work. He showed me how to reach out to the newcomer, the unlovely, still reeking of lust. He taught me the importance of our slogan, “Keep coming back”—and he showed me what my death might look like if I failed to heed it.

Thanks for everything, Art. Thanks for your service, and your wacky humor, and the cassette tapes you made with your karaoke machine. Goodbye, my buddy. Your buddy misses you.