Eagles fans from Philly went to Arizona to sober up — and stayed
PHOENIX — Rock bottom was any barstool in Southwest Philly, and if it weren’t for a friend out West, they’d still be sitting there, clinging to rotgut dreams that wouldn’t come true. Or they’d be dead.
It took a couple of decades, but one by one, the guys all got the same advice, when life was at its worst.
“Why don’t you give Jimmy a call in Arizona?”
The three men, all hard-core Philadelphia Eagles fans, gathered under a pagoda at the Pima Canyon Trailhead in Phoenix Wednesday afternoon to talk about the lives they’ve carved out here among the mesquite and iconic saguaros. Super Bowl LVII has revealed a whole host of Philly expats in Arizona. Some came chasing the weather, others came for love, but some moved here to dry out for good.
“There’s a lot of recovery houses and a lot of halfway houses in Arizona,” said Denny Alessandrine, a 54-year-old West Catholic graduate. “So there’s a lot of us out here.”
Alessandrine said he was drinking beer, whiskey, wine — whatever was around back home, every day. He couldn’t hold a job. He was the first one to call Jimmy, back in 2002.
“He bought me a bus ticket, a Greyhound, to get my life back together,” he said.
The bus made 27 stops. Alessandrine smoked a joint behind a Route 66 auto parts store somewhere in America, and hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol again. He’s been sober since May 1, 2002.
Two more West Catholic grads followed: Mike Daggett, now 54, took a Greyhound out in 2016. Tom, now 59, flew out just last year.
“Oh, you came out in luxury,” Alessandrine said jokingly.
Daggett, a forklift operator, came “for all the same reasons.”
“I lost my mom in 2014, and it went downhill from there and I couldn’t stop. What was bad in my life became ungodly worse,” Daggett said. “I got the same phone call they all got, and I took Jim up on his offer and I never looked back.”
For Tom, who didn’t want to give his last name, the sobriety and blazing desert suns are still new. He’s been sober since August.
“I’ve been drinking all my life,” he said. “I just had to get out of that area. Everyone I knew drank. I love ’em all, but I had to get away.”
Jimmy Wallin joined the men under the pagoda about 20 minutes later, and they all greeted one another with handshakes and hugs. Wallin, 54, is not a guru. He just hit bottom first and vowed to help anyone he could when he got sober.
“I came out here 30 years ago. I had to get out of Dodge,” Wallin said. “I had the drinking and the drugging problem and I needed help.”
Wallin, a Cardinal O’Hara graduate, was in recovery in Delaware County, but was offered an opportunity to go to a recovery house in Arizona. He was a laborer in Philadelphia, but drinking was a full-time job.
“I don’t think I would have survived living at home,” he said.
Wallin wound up buying the recovery house in Arizona. Today, he operates 18 Good Life recovery homes in Mesa, Phoenix, and Peoria, Ariz., along with one in Chester. Wallin is also a co-owner of Philly’s Sports Grill, which has five locations in the Phoenix area.
“It’s been a real land of opportunity for me out here,” he said. “None of us would have ever imagined having a life like this back in the day.”
The guys said at least seven men from Southwest Philly, themselves included, have come to Arizona to get sober. Most of them lived within a mile of 65th Street and Woodland Avenue back home, and they’d all heard about Jimmy’s sobriety and his outstretched hand.
The crew gathered to watch Super Bowl LII at Alessandrine’s house in 2018. It was alcohol-free.
They said the party atmosphere in the Phoenix area this week, with hordes of Eagles fans coming to town, won’t test their sobriety.
Daggett said it was “fricking amazing” that the Eagles were in the Super Bowl in their backyard. Alessandrine, who owns a general contracting company, called it “fricking awesome.”
But when the game is over Sunday and the Philly fans fly home, the gang from Southwest Philly will remain in this land of second chances, a Southwest they never dreamed about on those barstools.
“We all check in with each other. We go out to dinner together. We support each other,” Alessandrine said. “We’re here for each other.”