A new chapter of a national drug and alcohol support group for restaurant and hospitality professionals met for the first time at its newest location this week—an Alexandria steakhouse.

Ben’s Friends, founded in 2016 by two restaurateurs who faced their own battles with addiction, will be hosting weekly meetings at Oak Steakhouse in Alexandria, hoping to provide community, comfort, and hope to restaurant professionals who struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Over the past two years, the organization has launched ten chapters in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Oregon, and Virginia.

Steve Palmer, the co-founder of Ben’s Friends, manages Indigo Road Hospitality Group, which owns and operates Oak Steakhouse, O-Ku Sushi in Union Market, and more than 16 other establishments across the East Coast.

Palmer and co-founder Mickey Bakst, a veteran in the hospitality industry from South Carolina, started Ben’s Friends shortly after their friend and chef Ben Murray died by suicide via a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2016. Palmer says he couldn’t believe that the “happy-go-lucky” man who worked at his restaurant Town Hall in South Carolina, in a kitchen surrounded by other staff members in recovery, was struggling with mental health and addiction.

“There was no part of me that thought Ben was depressed. Nobody knew,” Palmer says. “He was very much somebody that suffered in silence.”

Within a week of Ben’s suicide, Palmer, who is now 18 years sober, decided to create the first chapter of Ben’s Friends in Charleston.

Ben’s Friends offers a unique perspective on sobriety for individuals whose job can be entrenched in temptation. For those who work in the restaurant industry, being surrounded by alcohol and other substances can create daily speed bumps on their road to recovery. According to a 2015 study by George Washington University Medical Center, 15 percent of restaurant employees in the hospitality industry face “serious alcohol related problems.” 

By the time Palmer began in the hospitality business, he says he was already struggling with drug and alcohol use. He doesn’t blame the industry alone for causing substance abuse problems, but says that working in restaurants is often glamorized in a way that normalizes addiction.

“We went out seven nights a week, and it was celebrated, it was accepted,” Palmer says. “We drank at work, we did drugs at work, and this was very normal behavior, it wasn’t seen as weird or outlandish.”

The philosophy behind Ben’s Friends is similar to that of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous programs in that it welcomes individuals at all stages of recovery. Ben’s Friends, however, takes place in a restaurant. All of the chapter chairs are former or current restaurant professionals with at least two years of sobriety.

“One hour a week is not going to get you sober,” Palmer says. “So we often say Ben’s Friends is a bridge to sobriety, and most often what you find is other people who have found a path to sobriety and you’re going to go on that path with them.”

The idea for the local Ben’s Friends chapter began when Todd Hunt, manager of The National Democratic Club on the Hill, came to Palmer, whom he has known for over 30 years of working in the restaurant business, and suggested bringing a chapter to the D.C. area. Hunt, now 10 year sober, says he watched his life fall apart through his addiction and come back together through recovery and seeking support from others.

“I’ve gone to meetings and I’ve done the steps to stay sober, and that’s given me the freedom to do what I want to do,” Hunt says. “I know a lot of managers who are really brilliant people but they can’t get out of their own way. I came close.”

Hunt calls Ben’s Friends a group for people who are “sober-curious,” and sees his role as chapter chair as one that shows others in the restaurant business that it’s possible to be sober.

“You get a lot of people who think ‘I don’t know if I can do this,'” Hunt says. “And we just gotta be like ‘Yeah you can, I’ve been sober 10 years.'”

Bartenders who remain sober for various reasons aren’t unusual in D.C. The 9:30 Club’s Kayla Johnson opened up to Washingtonian earlier this month about her decision to avoid drinking since 2011. Drink Company CEO Angie Salame has built the local enterprise behind Columbia Room, Reverie, and the Pop-Up Bar on 7th Street NW without ever being a drinker (she’s a supertaster), according to her 2016 interview with Washington City Paper in 2016.

“Really, it’s just knowing that you’re not alone,” Hunt says. “I think that’s the magic of Ben’s Friends.”

This post has been updated to the correct location of O-Ku.