GREG: Good morning, Jim.
JEH: Could you spell your last name please.
GREG: Yes, it’s D-U-S-S-A-U-L-T.
JEH: And how old are you, Greg?
GREG: Fifty-two.
JEH: Where were you born?
GREG: Actually, right here in Woonsocket.
JEH: So, did you grow up min Woonsocket?
GREG: I did.
JEH: Okay, so tell me about your mom and dad.
GREG: Both of my parents are still alive, thank God. My dad just turned 79, my mom just turned 76. They resided in Woonsocket in the same house their whole life. My dad worked at Amtrak, as long as I can remember he’s worked at Amtrak. He retired maybe like twelve years ago, and my mom retired thirteen years ago. My mom worked in food service.
JEH: What about siblings, do you have any?
GREG: I have one brother.
JEH: Older or younger?
GREG: Younger, he just turned 45.
JEH: And where is he living?
GREG: He lives in Woonsocket too. He actually runs the Li ‘I General on Mendon Road.
JEH: So, it would be safe to say that you’ve seen some changes in Woonsocket over the years?
GREG: Oh, absolutely. When I grew up things were, it’s amazing growing up in the time that I did because we didn’t have cell phones. It’s pretty amazing to go through times when we would go play outside for hours and hours, you know, ride around Woonsocket on our bikes. It was just a different time then, because you were in your own little bubble. I wouldn’t want to be growing up right now if I was a kid, with all the technology. Woonsocket definitely has a lot to offer, I feel like it gets a bad rap sometimes.
JEH: So, you grew up in Woonsocket, I assume you went to Woonsocket High School?
GREG: Yes.
JEH: So, what did you do after High School?
GREG: I went to Johnson & Wales. My grandfather owned a fish & chip place in Woonsocket many years ago. Gab’s Fish & Chips. It’s a house now, up off of Privilege Street, right across from the church. So, I would go there, not work, because I was so young. They would babysit me; I got to see that a lot. And then as I grew up, my grandfather worked part-time in a restaurant in Cumberland, called Sher-Le-Mon, and that was right across from the Cumberland High School. He was able to get me a dishwasher job there, and it kind of just rolled into, you know, “My grandson wants to start doing cooking.” They would have me do just little prep things, and I slowly moved up. And I was just good at it and it’s something I really liked doing.
And then I went to Johnson & Wales. Even when I was in Johnson & Wales, I was an assistant chef at The Classic in North Providence, Jimmy Birchfield’s Classic Restaurant. I went to school in the morning from 7:00 to 1:00 and then I would go into work afterwards, and work until 10:00 at night and then go to school Monday through Thursday from 7:00 to 1:00. It was all new to me, so it was kind of exciting.
And then after college I stayed in the restaurant business; I stayed there for a while, and I started with another company, Back Bay Restaurant Group, and Papa Razzi, was one of theirs, Joe’s American Grill, and they had a bunch up in Massachusetts. I stayed with the Italian concept, with Papa Razzi for ten plus years with them. And then they had an opportunity at the Providence Place Mall, where they opened Joe’s American Bar & Grill. They gave me the opportunity there to open that, and I was there for a little over three years.
JEH: Okay, I forgot to ask you, do you have any children?
GREG: I do.
JEH: How many children?
GREG: I have one biological and two step kids. I met her at the Classic Restaurant, she was a waitress, and I was one of the chefs. God put her in my life for a reason; I did not know that at the time.
JEH: When did Christ come into your life?
GREG: Well, just recently, when I was 49.
JEH: About three years ago?
GREG: Yeah, about that.
JEH: How was your life before Christ?
GREG: Well, I got to the point where, my dad was an alcoholic. I don’t blame my dad for this, I got into, everything I did was to the max, and I got into drinking at the end of high school, my senior year I was drinking a lot. As I got into the restaurant business that goes hand in hand, you know, work hard, play hard. I was always put around people that were very talented, but also had habits that were not good, between drinking and drugs. There’s a lot of it in the restaurant business, everybody knows it.
JEH: Do you think your dad’s alcoholism got in the way of him being a good dad, or was he a good dad?
GREG: You know, most of the younger times in my childhood, my dad was never a mean drunk, my dad was more of the loud annoying guy, that didn’t see it. He would always get to that point. He was a nice guy, but he was annoying, and he was especially annoying to me. He would always want to like play around and stuff. And I can remember, they used to go to a friend of theirs pretty frequently, maybe like once a week, something like that, and they had two kids.
And I can remember him being at the kitchen table and him wanting to like grab me or wrestle with me, and he was already drunk, and he was probably slurring at that time, but he fell off his chair. And I remember that feeling of being embarrassed and at the same time being so mad, and that kind of stayed with me. I saw things like that, things that my mother would see. Because him working at Amtrak was like me working at the restaurant, those guys would drink while they were working, which progressed into where my alcoholism brought me, drink while I’m working.
JEH: When, he wasn’t drinking did he show you any attention?
GREG: Yeah, on the weekends, we had a swimming pool, and he’d have his friends over, and it would be more of a party for everyone; there was plenty of alcohol there. I didn’t see it as a kid. And my dad worked two jobs most of his life.
JEH: So, you mentioned earlier that you came to Christ when you were 49 years old?
GREG: Yes.
JEH: How did that come about?
GREG: So, I’ve been in and out of rehab my whole life struggling with drugs and alcohol.
JEH: What was your drug of choice?
GREG: It was pain pills for a while. I had fallen off a four-wheeler, and I had already used them recreationally, but I had fallen off of a four-wheeler and had a compound fracture of my ankle. I was drunk, doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. When I was using, I was a liar all the time, I lied all the time, stealing, I was not a good person. In my mind I was always a good person because I was nice to people.
But I was doing these horrible things behind their back, friends, people that had helped me throughout the years. The addiction was just too much. They were giving me a lot of pain pills, and then they said, “We’re going to have to send you to a pain management class,” a doctor. I just lied to her, I told her my foot was numb to the point where I was going and getting steroid injections in my back through her. I was lying just to get the OxyContin and the Vicodin that they were giving me. I was out of control then.
And He’s put people in my life, and I just didn’t see it at that time. I went to rehab three times; the first time was for the pain pills; I decided I was going to keep alcohol in my life. That went on for a while. The alcohol got to the point, it was during covid, I couldn’t stop drinking. I had never really experienced that before, there was nothing else I was doing. With covid I was out for a year and a half, just drinking.
JEH: Daily?
GREG: Yeah, to the point where I was drinking vodka almost non-stop.
JEH: Where were you living?
GREG: I was living at the house in Glocester. My dad helped me out financially. My addiction was bad. I can remember the look on my wife’s face, it was the lowest time in my life. God was with me that day, I was able to pick up the phone the next day, call AdCare and they got me in a treatment facility. It was thirty days and then they extended it to forty-two, so I was in there for forty-two days.
This time I felt it was different for me because the last time I went in I still had a shell on me where I didn’t want to open up, I didn’t want to say anything. This time I was able to share with people that I didn’t know and be able to talk in front of people.
JEH: So, what happened after that?
GREG: I didn’t expect to go any further with my recovery at that point, but on the last week that I was there they came in and they said, “What are you planning on doing on after-care, you should really do an out-patient program.” So, I really didn’t want to do anymore. So, they said, “Here’s three pamphlets.” And I look at the first one, and it’s a guy that I’ve known my whole life that worked for me. He worked at River Falls for me as a cook, he worked with me up in Glocester at Chesters. And when I ever called there and all of a sudden, I got a call back, “Greg, it’s Chris.” God put me there for a reason. The place was called Ocean State Recovery. His sponsor is Bob Coderre. So, he started this, and Bob was one of the first people working with him. Before he had any of these places Bob was the one who helped him in his life.
JEH: Amazing, but not surprising concerning Bob.
GREG: I went there for another six months and got a really good base. I was going to meetings and everything, got introduced to Bob. We would go to meetings on Saturdays and Bob was there a lot, and we started having a relationship, and now I’m doing the AA meetings. And I’m saying out loud in this Saturday class, “I wish I had this relationship.” And Bob says, “I call, Baloney, if you really wanted to get a relationship with God you would ask around, you would do something. If you don’t ask, you’re going to keep wondering.”
I stopped talking, but it planted a seed in my head at that time and I started thinking about it. I said, “He’s right.” So, I ended up reaching out to him, and I said, “I don’t know what that looks like, but I want to learn more about God.” And I was wondering about Harvest. Pastor Gene, everyone in the congregation is unbelievable. The love that you feel when you go in there is like nothing else, and the preaching that Pastor Gene does, I swear it’s coming from Jesus. His words have guided me and opened my eyes more to become a better person, a compassion for things I didn’t have compassion for. It’s amazing that I didn’t see it before, and once you do see it, you can’t un-see it.
JEH: Amen, brother.
GREG: You know, when I got baptized, I said something to my wife, because she’s been praying for me my whole life too. I look back at all the times that it could have been a lot worse for me, and I look back at the times when I got away with things, I could have spent years in jail for. Why did He do that for me? And maybe it’s because people were praying for me, and He has something for me to give back now. When God is pushing you to do something, it’s actually the Holy Spirit, almost like a super conscience on your shoulder, saying, you know that this is what you need to do.
JEH: Is there anything that we failed to talk about or that you would like to add?
GREG: I think I slipped over my daughter, Devin. Devin’s my daughter, she’s twenty-five. She’s definitely a gift from God. Jesus worked in her life at a young age. She went away on a retreat at eleven years old, and she’s crying, she said that it just came over her. And I know that feeling in church, I’ve had that happen to me at Harvest when I went there, and I didn’t even know why it was coming out. Bob told me that it was Jesus just letting you know that he was there.
So, she has always been close with the church, she is the reason that I kept going to church and bringing her. I know that she has a great heart, but she has my disease. She knows it, she’s gone to meetings, she’s met Bob. I would love to have her come to Harvest with me. I had my wife come a couple of times.
JEH: I think you’re already have a profound effect on your daughter for the simple fact that you have accepted Jesus in your heart, and I’m sure she’s already noticed a positive change in you these last few months. Thank you for taking the time and for your willingness to speak openly about your life.
GREG: Thank you for asking me.
Jim Huling