Dan Cusick watches as Stephen Ritchings works outside the Castro Country Club. (Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle)

A good friend of mine, and of anyone in San Francisco who is involved in the clean and sober community, has passed away this morning of liver failure.

Dan Cusick was the facilities manager of the Castro Country Club, a clean and sober space in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood.

From the CCC website:

Located at 4058 18th Street, just off the world famous Castro in San Francisco, the Castro Country club is the oldest continuously operating coffee house in the neighborhood. Since 1983, it has been a place where people meet, hang out, and socialize in an alternative atmosphere to the bar scene...

The name, Castro Country Club, came about because there was once a small Astroturf-like putting green in the backyard, to give it that Country Club atmosphere. It was more for laughs then anything else. There was also a membership fee that was charged to help raise money to keep the Country Club going and give the member a sense of exclusivity. At the time the member paid his fee, he would have his picture taken. The member's name was then put on the picture, and the picture would be placed on the large wall in the entry hall. This was done so that anyone wanting to meet someone that he thought was cute or interesting could go to the wall and look that person's name up and then introduce himself.

When the AIDS epidemic hit, many of these members' pictures were eventually taken down and put into photo albums, which became the photo albums of the dead. At the height of the epidemic, the Country Club assisted members that had no health coverage by making them volunteers and putting them on the books and eventually their health care plan. This allowed those volunteers to get essential medical care.

As the volunteer base grew the atmosphere of the Club changed, yet again.

The development of AIDS medications prolonged peoples' lives; many in our community, as a result, became more health-concious. A lot of the members and volunteers became clean and sober and went to recovery meetings, and then would go to the Country Club after their meetings for fellowship and a cup of coffee...over time the Castro Country Club has come to be recognized as a "clean, sober and safe space" for socializing.

I run a drop-in space for queer youth, many of whom are homeless, un-employed and HIV positive, out of one of the rooms inside the Castro Country Club. This space wouldn't exist without the help, generosity and love of Dan Cusick.

I'll miss him very much.