Joey Arbagey

The waiters and waitresses at L'Acajou in New York knew to top my drink off without asking. Ketel One on the rocks. The vodka, the ice, the wedges of lime — all of it — would keep coming, unprompted, barely acknowledged, through the night. I never needed to order the first one; it would arrive as soon as I settled into one of the diner-style booths that lined both sides of the small Alsatian bistro on West 19th Street. I ate there most nights for almost 10 years. Other restaurants were such a pain — all that ordering, all that signaling the staff for refills.

L'Acajou closed a few weeks after I got sober. It had been barely hanging on for some time, and the flatiron district hadn't quite taken off in the way that it would a few years later. I went the last night it was open and watched Jack, the tall-drink-of-water waiter who muttered sarcastically under his breath about everything and everyone, ferry the last order out of the kitchen. Walking out of the place that night, I felt a new grief: My entire personal and professional life in New York so far had happened in the booths of that restaurant. Many nights — most? — ended with me, and whomever I was with, drinking in a booth long after the other patrons had left and Danny the owner had locked the door. All that was over now. My 20s were over. Drinking and ordering drugs after dinner in the bathroom were over too. But I was grateful. Someone told me when I first got sober to avoid people, places, and things that were involved in my drinking. L'Acajou was the place for me in New York, and it was unimaginable to eat anywhere else, but it was also unimaginable to eat there without drinking. Like a Christmas tree without lights or tennis shoes without laces, L'Acajou without vodka didn't make sense. But before I was forced to spurn the old lover, the place shut down. I was sad for the employees who scattered to other restaurants and for Danny, who I hear ended up moving to Pennsylvania. But for me, it was a great relief. A godsend.

Other restaurants were a cinch. I never quite became a regular at Prune or Union Square Cafe or Wallsé (the places I'd go with clients and friends from time to time), so I didn't have to confront the appalled confusion that greeted me the first night at L'Acajou when I turned away a drink. Josie, the prickly Parisian septuagenarian waitress, just frowned and brought me a glass of tap water. Once the place closed, I didn't have to worry about any more frowns, but how I would negotiate the remaining evening terrain — cocktail parties, dinners, benefits — was still unknown.

The first dinner party I went to after I got sober was at my friend's place on the East River. It was a seated dinner for 30 or so people and was in honor of a visiting foreign politician. I'd taken the better part of a year off to get sober — going to 12-step meetings three times a day, eating in diners with other recovering addicts and alcoholics — so the duplex penthouse swirling with cater waiters and elegant literary and political types was, I realized quickly as I stepped out of the elevator, a harrowing proving ground. I arrived late to avoid the cocktail hour, made a quick lap around the living room and terrace, and scurried to my seat in the dining room. When the waiter arrived with gleaming bottles of red and white wine, the elegant woman sitting to my left gracefully placed her hand above the rim of her wineglass and informed the waiter she wouldn't be drinking this evening. "Same here," I managed, and I turned to introduce myself to my dinner companion. I soon discovered that the woman had been sober for more than 20 years, and we talked a blue streak through the night.

Other sober angels surfaced — and continue to — in hotel rooftop clubs, benefits, and launch parties at places as varied as Hiro Ballroom, the Museum of Modern Art, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, Capitale, and even the whale room at the Museum of Natural History. Instead of wings, these angels tended to materialize in catering uniforms. Many, many people in recovery are cater waiters. There has barely been one function — a large benefit or small private party — where someone who I've met hasn't appeared at my side with a sparkling water on a tray. And even several times in bars and clubs (where I go only if there is a professional obligation and usually make a quick 20-minute appearance and leave) in my brief turn around the room, I've looked up to see someone I sat across a diner booth from slinging drinks from behind a crowded bar.

There is a parallel universe happening right now in New York and pretty much everywhere else: throngs of people — tattooed, suited, done up, and carefully undone — streaming from their office jobs, photo shoots, classrooms, and gyms into church basements and school cafeterias where they get and stay sober. They duck in, they duck out, and they speckle the rooms of the city and, whether they know it or not, serve as beacons to the newly sober who are finding out, finally, that they are not alone in their struggle with alcohol and drugs.

Not all nights are as charmed. Occasionally, I'll be stuck across the table from someone who drinks like I drank. Someone — usually it's only one — who gets looser and more confessional and less careful as the drinks go down. All sorts of things fly after the eight vodkas — confessions, resentments, revolting tirades, quivering worry — and all of it looks and sounds familiar. There is little said in a drunken slur that hasn't been said before. Most people who drink have a night or two like this, and it doesn't necessarily make them an alcoholic. It's none of my business if they are or are not; the disease is a self-diagnosed one. I'll believe they are an alcoholic or an addict when they tell me they are, not because they lean too close and tell me how much they hate their wife one night at ABC Kitchen after a river of alcohol has been consumed. These nights tend to be followed by apologetic e-mails the next morning. "I'm so embarrassed. I'm so sorry. Please forget everything I said." I remember those e-mails and am relieved I no longer send them.

Navigating a nonsober world of restaurants and bars, dinner parties, and benefits is like anything that requires practice. Like tennis or a foreign language, it gets easier the more you do it. But like all beginnings, it can be awkward. You stumble, you worry, and then there are unexpected moments of grace that give you the courage to keep going.

The first big benefit I went to, right after I returned to work, was at Cipriani on 42nd Street. It's a dazzling space, an old bank with ceilings higher than the ones in Grand Central Station. Champagne on trays streaked like comets, and handsome bartenders tossed drinks together in what seemed like a dozen bars. Away from such events for so long, I worried I wouldn't know anyone, and there was an hour before it was time to make our way to the dinner tables. I grabbed a glass of sparkling water from a waiter and retreated to the edge of the room. Everyone seemed young and thrilled and ready for decades more of evenings just like this one.

At first, I imagined the whole shiny pack of them sipping cocktails and champagne and signaling for more. But as I looked closer, I noticed that many of them were drinking sparkling water, just as I was. In the years when I drank, I imagined everyone drank. Or I was so consumed with getting the next drink that I didn't bother to notice. But here, now, a year sober, the truth of these evenings was revealed: Some people drink, some don't, and a few drink too much. For all my teenage and adult life, I have been in the last category and then, because that didn't work out so well, in the second. I pondered all this, water in hand.

Before I reached any conclusions, a wiry guy in dark pants and a white shirt approached. I recognized him right away. He was someone I met in one of those big groups that descend on coffee shops after meetings like pigeons in Washington Square Park. We played tennis once, and at least two times he took my call after midnight and listened to me worry and whine about a future without alcohol or drugs. I didn't know what he did for a living and didn't know his name. Still, he approached as if he'd known me all his life and, bottle of sparkling water in hand, without a word, without being asked, topped off my drink. Just like old times.

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