John F. Pontius, a Washington tour guide, Air Force security specialist, archives technician and a recovering alcoholic who made it a major mission of his life to help other alcoholics get sober in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, died July 16 at his home in the District. He was 81.
The cause was heart disease and related complications, said his wife, Ruth C. Pontius.
At the age of 43 in March 1978, Mr. Pontius quit drinking and — at the order of his doctor — entered a 28-day alcoholic rehabilitation program. He had already suffered one heart attack. He was weakened and in a wheelchair.
When friends wheeled him into the rehab facility, an admitting nurse looked down at him and asked, “Does it walk?” Mr. Pontius would later tell friends.
For the next 38 years, he never took another alcoholic drink. To recovering alcoholics, he became widely known as a sponsor and mentor at the hundreds of AA meetings in church basements, office buildings, clubs and even bar rooms throughout the Washington area.
Advertisement
He organized and attended annual retreats for recovering alcoholics, including one in Buckeystown, Md., for older men, which came to be known colloquially as “the Old Farts Weekend.”
Share this articleShareJohn Frederick Pontius was born in Canton, Ohio, on Oct. 25, 1934, and grew up in Charlotte, N.C. He attended Tennessee’s Sewanee: The University of the South and served nine years in the Air Force, learning to speak Arabic and Russian. He was a voice intercept processing specialist, monitoring and transcribing Egyptian and Russian communications from U.S. posts in Crete and England.
Later he was an archives specialist at the National Archives, Library of Congress, American Film Institute and the George C. Marshall Foundation.
In the 1980s, he was a counselor and community relations specialist at the Meadows Recovery Center in Gambrills, Md., and at Chit Chat Farms recovery facility in Wernersville, Pa.
Advertisement
From 1994 until his death, Mr. Pontius was a tour guide with the Guide Service of Washington. He was a former senior warden of Christ Episcopal Church in Washington.
Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Ruth Campbell Pontius of Washington; and a son, Nick Pontius of Alexandria.
Mr. Pontius drove a car with the license tag “AA 78,” commemorating the year in which he had his last drink.
Read more Washington Post obituaries
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLmwr8ClZqiamanCor7Inqpoop%2Bdu26yjKmmp6yZqsBuw8eoZJynpaPAprjEnWSfnZyhvLh50Z6aqK6Vp7avs4yao5ynmKS5qq%2FSZpuinaNirrV5l2pma2hha3xxg45rbWicYZeAdHzAcWRuaGFuenJ9xG9kmplhaXqmfMJqZ3FvlmyCeX%2B%2BrKuoqqljtbW5yw%3D%3D