The Group at Ground Zero

It's lunchtime on an early October day in New York City, and we're nearing the end of an AA meeting. The room we're in is much like any other AA meeting room, transformed from its everyday use by the Steps and Traditions, the Slogans, a large Preamble, a table with a literature rack, and a small library of AA books and Grapevines. There's a chalkboard, however, that reveals that not everything here is quite so ordinary, for it's crammed with people's names and home groups, written on each day. And most of the AA members in the room are men who've arrived in hardhats and boots which they had to wash off before entering the building. The weary looks on their faces tell you they've come right off the job. Just look out the window and you'll see from where: lines of trucks and construction equipment move slowly past, kicking up a gritty, dull gray dust. Everyone is wearing facemasks or eye gear or protection of some kind, and at the corner, city police and national guard stop passersby and check their IDs. You see, two short blocks south of here lie the ruins of the World Trade Center, and yet today the twelve of us have gathered in this room to have an AA meeting, at what's come to be called the Ground Zero Group.