The Green Chair Legacy: Caring for the New Man at The Wheelhouse
By: Lanier Young
I came to The Wheelhouse, a nonprofit alcohol recovery program in Deer Park, Texas, on March 24, 2009. That date I will never forget.
I remember sitting on a couch in the meeting room, lost in a fog, shaking, and feeling sick. A man looked at me and said, “You don’t have to feel that way anymore.” I sat in silence, unsure of where I was or even what time of day it was.
The men around me kept repeating words of encouragement: “Don’t leave. This is God’s house. You are right where you’re supposed to be.”
That evening, we circled up, held hands, and prayed. At dinner, I heard shouts of “New man eats first!” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but someone fixed me a plate of food and showed me where to sit. Others explained that the “new man” was someone just arriving at The Wheelhouse. It was someone who needed to be looked after, cared for from day one.
The Rules of Recovery
Over the next few days, I learned many small but important rules that make life at The Wheelhouse a structured path to recovery:
Keep your book with you.
Push your chair in.
Use a fork when eating.
Don’t let the new man drown.
Tell the new man God loves him.
Make the new man’s bed for him.
…to name only a few.
At The Wheelhouse, the new man is at the heart of the recovery process. Every action is centered around making sure he knows he is not alone.
Here, an alumnus helps the “new man” who is in the green chair
The Story of the Green Chair
One tradition that stands out at The Wheelhouse is the green chair. At every dinner table and meeting, there’s a green chair reserved for the new man.
When I asked Randy, an “old-timer” who came to The Wheelhouse in 1992, where the green chair came from, he said it “just showed up” sometime between 1995 and 2005 at the second Wheelhouse on W. Helgra.
Before that, there weren’t formal rules about the new man. Everyone knew who to look out for because there were only a handful of men in the house. As the program grew, having a green chair became a way to make sure the new man was always visible and always supported.
Making a bed for that “new man.”
Why the New Man Matters
On my first day in 2009, there were four of us who arrived. We weren’t sure who was the official “new man,” but it didn’t matter. The men of The Wheelhouse made sure we were fed, prayed with, and supported.
That’s what makes The Wheelhouse unique. It’s a nonprofit rooted in spiritual recovery and action, moment by moment, day by day. From making a meal to making a bed, the entire community works together to help the new man a path toward sobriety. Because at The Wheelhouse, recovery begins with one simple truth: it all starts with the new man.