Getting Together--Not Getting Wasted

Most members of the Gay, Clean and Sober Bowling League couldn’t care less about their scores.

The highest tally so far is 216 (a couple of participants are regulars at an annual gay bowling tournament, the Las Vegas Showgirl Invitational), but 40 is acceptable, if not commonplace.

Indeed, some low rollers in this nearly 2-month-old league don’t even know how to keep score. (Which can be troublesome at the ‘60s-era bowling alley where the group meets. There is no computerized scoring. Bowlers must rely on grease pencils, overhead projectors and basic math skills.)

So what brings these folks together every Sunday?

The 43 men and five women who make up the Gay, Clean and Sober Bowling League say it’s a challenge of a different kind: getting together without getting wasted.

“These bowlers are people who are serious about their recovery, and they want to have a full life,” says league founder Francis G. (He and other league members follow the first-name-last-initial tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill W., although their organization is not affiliated with AA or any other 12-step group.)

“They’re not embarrassed that they don’t know how to bowl. They’re not interested in getting better at bowling. They’re interested in talking, catching all the gossip, getting to know each other.”

And if they are humiliated by beginners’ scores?

“I just tell them, ‘You’ll get better’ . . . They can’t get much worse,” says Francis, who brags that he has been in tournaments in which he placed last.

Even the league’s best bowlers aren’t competitive. Listen to Gary R., who drives 30 miles from Long Beach to Hollywood for the weekly event: “I bowled better drunk.”

And now?

“I’m here to have fun. I used to spend $60 a night when I bowled. Most of it was on drinks. Here I spend $12. Ten dollars to bowl and $2 for a couple of iced teas.”

Others emphasize recovery rather than fun. Like Michael P., who had to be coaxed into going because the thought of socializing terrified him.

“I usually isolate and don’t mingle with people,” he says, tentatively. “I felt sick before I came here, but I came. I set myself up emotionally to be physically sick. I realized when I got here that I wasn’t really sick. Bowling is the best thing I’ve done in my sobriety. You sit at (support group) meetings and they talk about recovery. This is doing it, not talking about it.”

The league resulted from an experience Francis had while he was hospitalized for alcohol and drug rehabilitation about three years ago.

“I was the only gay person there,” recalls the interior designer. Internationally famous before he sobered up, Francis now holds a lower-profile job with a prestigious, conservative Beverly Hills design firm.

“Toward the end of my hospital stay, they recommended I take up a sport,” he says. “They gave me a list to choose from. The only sport I could think about doing was bowling.

“I said I couldn’t do it, of course, because of the fear of a) not knowing how to bowl, b) not being good enough and c) having always associated bowling with drinking.”

The staff, in a sense, hijacked him.

“They put me in the back of a van and took me to a bowling alley. When you’re in those hospitals, you have 24-hour supervision. They said, ‘See, you can bowl. You’re to show up on Monday nights.’ So I did, and I haven’t missed it in three years. Now I go to tournaments and come home with trophies.”

Initially, the reluctant bowler was the only teetotaler on a team of gay drinkers. He quickly formed his own team of clean-and-sober gays. “By the third game, we’d still be going,” he says. “And the other people would be loaded.”

The idea of forming an entire league of gay, clean and sober bowlers occurred to him last spring. In mid-May, he circulated sign-up flyers at meetings of AA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Narcotics Anonymous and other 12-step groups. By May 31, a league of 10 teams, each with four players, was operating; the following week two more teams were formed.

“Our first week, a group called ‘Rejoice in Jesus’ was bowling in the first 12 lanes. I know they kept looking at us and were thinking, ‘Gee, there’s a lot of men down there.’ I looked at a friend and said, ‘I think they’re catching on,’ ” Francis recalls.

“People just don’t expect gay people to be bowlers. I think they’re appalled. It’s like we’re everywhere. We’ve crossed the boundary of taste. We’re bowling! “

Because of a lack of lanes, he had to close the league at 48 participants, but he expects to expand it in the fall. Members--who arrive in sportswear ranging from classy polo shirts to T-shirts that say “Spank Me”--keep bringing their friends.

In fact, the response has been so great that Francis envisions Gay, Clean and Sober Bowling Leagues in cities throughout the country. Maybe the world.

A Memorial Day visit to the “Gay AA-L.A.” convention, which attracted an international crowd, convinced him there is a need.

“Our primary purpose is to help the alcoholic who is still suffering,” he explains. “A good bowling league is all about fellowship and helping people get over their fears that they’re not good enough.”

There’s no rush, though. If the world doesn’t demand Francis’ assistance in setting up an international bowling organization, it’s OK.

“There are to be no leaders in AA,” he points out. “The only reason I formed this bowling league is that very few people in the gay, clean and sober community know how to bowl.”

Or how to have a good time without alcohol or drugs, he insists. “In the gay community, the big social thing on Sunday is to go to brunch and drink mimosas or to go to a beer bust in the late afternoon. This is an alternative.”

There are other benefits, too. As Francis has discovered, it’s also possible to come home with bowling trophies and “turn them into lamps.”