Oh, Thank Goodness : The Power of ‘This Recovery Thing’

In 1989, the Earth trembled, skies poured, killer winds howled, tankers spilled and revolutions swept the globe. In Los Angeles, gang violence claimed yet more victims and traffic seemed to grow ever worse. Still, amid the tide of oft-tragic happenings, small rays of hope keep shining through. Here are a few of many stories worth sharing on a day of feasting, family and friends. They’re enough to remind that it’s still worth saying: “Oh, Thank Goodness.”

Last year Robert Clark was a homeless Vietnam veteran trying to kick his drinking habit in Los Angeles.

It didn’t work.

Clark, who had bounced between Los Angeles and Reno and Las Vegas, just kept on bouncing.

Finally, last summer the former casino worker bounced all the way north to the Seattle-Tacoma, Wash., area, scraping up the money to travel as he went.

The trip had the same aimlessness that characterized the former Marine’s life over the last few years. “A guy said Seattle was the place to be,” Clark said.

But maybe it was a good bounce.

Clark, whose story was reported in the View section last November, called last week to say that he has recorded more than 100 days of sobriety, that he is in a treatment program, that he has started a business--selling posters of his poems--and that he has other plans for making money, including a janitorial service. He has a roof over his head.

Clark also said that he wants to “set an example” of straight living in the “drug-infected, high-crime neighborhood” where he is living and that he wants to help others striving to kick chemical dependencies.

“Once I became willing to give up alcohol, it only took me about 90 days to get my act together, really about a month,” Clark, 39, said, noting that he’ll have Thanksgiving dinner with a group of other recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. “I get chills every day from just knowing how powerful this recovery thing is.”