My Name is Anthony

By Jen McCaffery

Anthony Maselli was twenty-six when he realized that if he kept going the way he was, he wouldn’t survive.

He still made it to his job at Starbucks, but he was using crystal meth heavily — something he had sworn he’d never do. He’d been up for four days, wasn’t eating and probably lost ten pounds in a week.

“It hit me suddenly, if I keep doing this, I’m just going to die,” Maselli recalls.

He started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings around Providence, but would come home and could not resist. Typically witty with a cherubic face, he had been drinking several bottles of wine a day, then going out and partying with cocktails and bags of cocaine.

Everything changed on July 13, 2012. Maselli woke up feeling awful. He knew he was done. This time, Maselli was able to get sober, but his worries weren’t over. Within two months, he tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.Article