SPOKANE, Wash. -- Driving down Greene Street, not far from Hillyard, you may have seen Andrew Piersen, 32, at the corner of Mission Avenue holding a sign.
The sign has two sides. One says, “I’d rather be here proclaiming my unconditional love for her than drinking my life away.” The other side says, “Talk is cheap!! No more words!! Only action.”
“Someone very close to me said I was nothing but a bunch of talk and she needed to see some action,” Piersen explained. "If there was a mountain nearby, I’d be on top of the mountain.”
He started hitting the street corners on March 3. As he stands on the street corner, cars honk, people wave and they tell him to keep it up.
“Sometimes I have a cop stop by and he will wish me luck. Then, I got women crying and tearing up and I just wish that maybe tonight, one day at a time, somebody didn’t drink,” Piersen said.
He has been struggling with alcoholism for 18 of his 32 years. As of Friday, he is two weeks sober and hopes to stay that way. He’s been working on his steps through Alcoholics Anonymous, formulating a treatment plan and going to church.
“I figured I’d let my sobriety be known. I’ve come so far and it means so much,” he said.
He has already changed his life in positive ways. Just two years ago he was homeless. Now, he is a forklift driver with his own apartment.
He feels like it’s his turn to change the world and make a difference.
“I want to be the best man I can be and with every thumbs up I get, with every honk, I hope that they take this home and apply it with their own children, with their own spouse,” Piersen added. “Me standing here is like a beacon of hope and proof.”
Piersen said after years of drinking he could see that he pushed away everything he loved. He is out there with that sign for himself and his children because he does want to make a positive influence on the world.
“Now I can see everything so clear. My sobriety won’t end and I’m gonna be very proud of myself,” he said.
As for the woman he is trying to woo, he said her name is Ethel and she is his ‘hummingbird.’ She has two children and he wants them to see that he has made a change.
He does have a message he would like Ethel to hear, “I’ll see you when I’m even better, I’ll see you on the other side where it’s warm some sunny day.”