I notice he is wearing cuff links on his pinstriped shirt. Cuff links and loafers. But when you look at his eyes, all you see is destruction and emptiness. Something so sad it scares me. It scares me because I almost recognize it. He could be an ad guy.
“I had a car accident,” says another man who is wearing a cowboy hat. “My face went right through the windshield, thirty-two stitches,” he says, pointing to the scar that runs across his forehead, just below the brim of his hat. “Think that stopped me? Hell no. And you know why? ’Cause I didn’t hit nobody else. It was only me that got hurt, and I don’t count, see?”
Tom, the WASP, looks at the cowboy and nods his head. Yeah, he knows.
Car accidents, facial lacerations, paralyzed mothers . . . I am definitely in the wrong place. This is for hard-core alcoholics. Rock-bottom, ruined-their-lives alcoholics. I’m an Advertising Alcoholic. An eccentric mess. I fold my arms across my chest and look out the window at the lone tree in the distance. The tree looks homeless. It looks like—oh, I don’t know—an advertising copywriter who refused to go to rehab and got fired. A general sense of doom swells inside of me.
A woman says, “But Dale, you are important. It’s your disease that makes you feel you’re not.”
David looks at the woman who just spoke. He’s wearing a naughty face. “You know the rules Helen. If you have something to say, use an ‘I’ statement.”
Helen blushes slightly and stammers. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.” She inhales very deeply, slides her eyes up to the ceiling. “What I mean is that I could relate to your story because I have felt that my drinking was okay as long as it didn’t hurt anybody. But in the program, I’m starting to realize that I do matter, that I am somebody who is worth something and it’s the booze and the crack that make me feel I’m not. If I don’t use, I can’t lose.” Then she looks at the cowboy. “Dale, I’m very glad you shared that. And you too, Tom. I really got a lot out of what both of you said . . . so thanks.” She shrugs and smiles.
I’m thinking, In the program . . . thanks for sharing . . . if I don’t use, I can’t lose . . . What language are these people speaking? I remember I was really freaked out on my first day in advertising, because I could barely understand a word people said. It was as if I had taken a job in Antwerp: Storyboards, VO, Tag, Farm-out, CA, Rep, Donut-middle. It was like, Huh? My favorite phrase was “Two-Cs-in-a-K.” This referred to the standard packaged goods commercial. It stood for Two Cunts in a Kitchen.
I say, “There seems to be an alcoholic language and I don’t speak it.” I have never had an ear for languages, which is yet another reason why I should leave right now.
People chuckle knowingly.
David smiles.
I turn red and mentally scold myself for actually involving myself with these people. Better to sit quietly, avert the eyes. Do not ask the Iranian hijackers for an extra pillow.
David says, “Yup, there’s a language all right. You’ll pick it up really quickly. But if there’s some particular thing you heard that you don’t understand, just tell us and we can explain it to you.”
Marion briefly departs her world of low self-esteem long enough to smile at me.
I wipe my hands on my pants. They leave dark wet marks behind. I am feeling so out of place and uncomfortable, not to mention threatened. Like it’s the first day of high school and I showed up in a red Speedo. I swallow hard. “Well, this woman here . . .” I point to the woman who had just “shared.” “Helen, is it?”
She nods.
“Yeah, so Helen, she said something about ‘in the program’ and I guess I was wondering what a ‘program’ is.” Somehow, I do not think a program in any way resembles something Julie from The Love Boat would dream up.
“Would anybody like to answer Augusten’s question?”
Pregnant Paul smiles at me, looks like he’s about to open his mouth.
“Sure. Hi Augusten, I’m Brian and I’m a drug addict,” says a guy who has been silent the whole time. He has been not only silent, but borderline smirky.
“Hi, Brian!” says the room.
“A ‘program’ is basically AA terminology and it refers to the steps. You know the Twelve Steps?”
I shake my head vaguely and shrug. I only know the first step, which seems depressing enough: admitting I am powerless over alcohol, even bad sangria. That there are eleven additional steps is daunting.
“Okay, well, when you ‘work your program’ all that means is that you’re doing everything you can do to stay sober, according to the steps. You’ll see. You’ll see a lot of AA when you get out of here.”
That should be interesting. I’ve always wondered what an AA meeting is like. The reason I’ve never been to one—aside from the fact that you can’t drink at them—is because I’m afraid what I see in my head might be close to the truth: Held downstairs in the dank, unused basements of churches, I envision a shamed group of people wearing long dark coats and old Foster Grant sunglasses, sitting in folding metal chairs. Everyone is clutching a white Styrofoam cup filled halfway with bad coffee. Filled only halfway so the coffee doesn’t slosh out, due to the fact that everyone’s hands are trembling from withdrawal. I see one person after another introducing themselves. . . . “. . . and I’m an alcoholic.” And I hear the other alcoholics applauding. “Congratulations!! Welcome!! One day at a time!!” Maybe they talk about how much they want to drink. “And I would kill for a Manhattan right now.” And somebody else says “. . . on the rocks, a Manhattan on the rocks . . .” And a few people moan and you hear all of these frantic sips of coffee all at once. Maybe there’s even a secret handshake, like the Mormons who also don’t drink. My feeling has always been that if AA means sitting around in the bottom of a church talking endlessly about how much I want to drink, I’d rather never talk about drinking. I’d rather talk about modern art or advertising or screenplay ideas, while tossing back shots. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what the mystical force of AA really is. I can hardly wait. Check please.
Why does this have to be so complicated? I wish they could just cut your “drinker” out of you. Like having a kidney stone removed. You check into the hospital as an outpatient, get anesthetized from the waist down, they put headphones on you and you listen to Enya. Fifteen minutes later, the doctor lifts the headphones off and shows you the small, turd-colored organ he extracted from somewhere inside you. I see it looking like a snail.
“Would you like to save it . . . as a souvenir?”
“No, Dr. Zizmor, toss it. I don’t want any reminder.”
The doctor slaps you on the back on your way out. “Congratulations, you’re now a sober man.”
“Could I say something to the group?” Brian asks.
“Of course,” says David.
“I would just like everyone to know that I am down to my last doses of Valium and by Monday, I should be off of it entirely.”
The room applauds.
Why does he get Valium? All I get is a McFishThing sandwich, along with Mother’s Little Helper so I don’t go into some alcoholic withdrawal shock. I want Valium.
Yet there’s something about this Brian person I like. I sense that he is extremely intelligent. There’s a professionalism to the way he speaks, like he’s a therapist, that I find comforting. That’s just my gut instinct. I think tonight at dinner, maybe I will sit with him instead of Big Bobby and Kavi the Sex Addict.
Group lasts for an hour and a half. Having survived, I now have fifteen minutes before my next piece of structured therapy: chemical dependency history, or CDH.
At the bottom of the stairs, Tom the WASP catches up to me. “It really does get better,” he says. “In a few days, you won’t want to leave this place.”
I smile, say, “Thanks,” and walk to my room thinking, you are so wrong.
I’m standing in front of a white marker board, upstairs, writing down “to the best of your ability” a complete history of my drinking.
“I want you to
go back as far as possible and list everything . . . alcohol, barbituates, tranquilizers, speed, everything . . . even prescription painkillers. And don’t minimize. List your age, the substance, the quantity consumed and the regularity.”
So far on the board, I have written:
Age 7: Given NyQuil for cold. Grandfather is NyQuil salesman so we have cases of it. Green is favorite color so sometimes sneak sips.
Age 12: First real drunk. One bottle of red wine. Threw up on friend’s sheepdog.
Ages 13–17: Smoke pot once a week. Drink alcohol maybe once a week.
18: Drink nightly, always to intoxication. Five drinks per night, + or −
19–20: Drink maybe ten drinks per night, with occasional binges. Coke once every six months.
21 to present: A liter of Dewar’s a night, often chased with cocktails. Cocaine once a month.
I stand back and look. A jumble of blue words, my messy writing, my magic marker confession up here for all to see. I’ve never actually quantified before.
People look at the board, then back at me.
Tracy, the leader of the CDH group, looks at me with eyes that seem to belong to someone three times her age. It’s something beyond wisdom, all the way to insanity and back. It’s like her eyes are scarred from all the things she’s seen. “When you look at what you’ve just written, what do you feel?” she asks.
I look at the board. Now that it’s up there, it does seem like I drink a lot. “I guess I drink a lot.” I feel ashamed, like I wear the same pair of underwear for days at a time.
Brian, from Group, says, “Given the quantity of alcohol you’ve consumed, it’s a wonder you’re alive at all.”
And what makes Mr. Valium such an expert? I wonder.
A lesbian wearing a blue MALL OF AMERICA sweatshirt tells me, “I am so happy that you’re here. You need to be here.”
A couple of other people agree. Glad you’re here. You need to be here. They may be right or they may be wrong. But the one thing that I know for sure is that this will make a great bar story.
“The amount of alcohol you consumed would be associated with late-stage alcoholism. You were very much in danger of alcoholic poisoning, an overdose. And I’m glad you’re here, too.” Tracy looks at me with genuine warmth and understanding. Something else, too. Something that makes me think we could have really partied together.
I figure I’ll up the ante. “Does Benadryl count?” A couple of people look at me. I shrug innocently like, Shucks, I don’t know these things.
“Benadryl? The antihistamine?” asks Tracy.
“Yes,” I say. “Does that count?”
“It depends,” she says, suspiciously.
“Oh. Well, the thing is, I can’t drink alcohol, not any alcohol, without having an allergic reaction. My face swells, my chest gets red, I get a metallic taste in my mouth and it’s hard to breathe. Even one drink will do it. But I found that if I take Benadryl before I drink, I’m okay.”
“How much Benadryl?” she asks.
Other people look at me, then at her, then back at me. This could be Wimbledon.
I suddenly realize that the amount is so staggeringly large that I am ashamed to admit it. “Ten pills a day. Usually. Sometimes fifteen.”
Her eyes widen in alarm. “And the recommended dosage? What is that?” But she’s not really asking me the dosage, she’s asking me if I recognize insane when I see it. I play along.
“Two.”
She looks at me. Actually, right through me to the back of the chair. She can see its upholstery despite the fact that my body is blocking the view. She says nothing. Because she knows she doesn’t need to say anything. She knows that I already know. All she does is close her eyes and give me a small smile. “Yep, I’m very glad you’re here.”
I sit quietly and a strange and unfamiliar feeling comes to me. It is almost a feeling of relief, ears popping, pressure released. But it’s something else, too. I think for the first time I can see, right up there on the board, that I do drink much more than normal. And the pills I have to swallow to drink. Like my body is allergic to alcohol and is telling me I shouldn’t be drinking, but I do anyway. And when I sit there looking at what I’ve written, I almost can’t help but feel like it’s possibly a good thing I am here. Or rather, that this has been drawn to my attention, made serious and not just a joke.
Maybe that’s enough and I can go?
Dinner goes like this: on the way upstairs, I avoid Kavi, the sex addict from Corpus Christi, a city whose name now sounds obscene to me, like the technical term for a Blue Whale penis. “The Corpus Christi of the Blue Whale is typically between nine and twelve and a half feet long, when fully erect.” Once inside the cafeteria I am greeted by some of the other patients, a few of whom I recognize from group or the chemical dependency history class, some of whom I have never seen before. “Thanks . . . yeah . . . culture shock . . . thirty days . . . alcohol . . . I’m sure . . . Thanks anyway . . .” I take a red plastic tray. Dinner is served by the exact same bitter, underpaid woman who served lunch. Her name tag reads MRS. RICE. So she has lived up to her name, fulfilled her destiny to work somehow with food. She’s a tall woman, fleshy without being fat. Her hair is gray and because it is also long and straight, parted in the center, this for some reason makes me think she used to be a blonde. She is now a former blonde working a double shift in a rehab hospital. I smile at her because I feel guilty, like the fact that I wear Armani means I should somehow have my life more together, that I am ungrateful and spoiled and deserve no empathy or dinner. All of which is probably true.
I take the tray of gray shepherd’s pie, canned cream of corn soup, tapioca pudding and milk and stand there looking at the tables, trying to see if Brian from Group is here. I spot him. I make a beeline.
He seems unsurprised that I chose him to sit next to. “Brian, right?” I ask.
“Shit, you’re doing good. It took me two weeks before I learned even one person’s name.” There’s corn on his chin.
I smile, genuinely for the first time in twenty-four hours. “You’ve got corn there,” I say, pointing to my own chin.
We find an easy rapport. He hates the food here. I agree. The people are freaks. Exactly what I thought. The place is in shambles. Obviously. But it works.
“Really?” I ask, unsure as to how this is possible.
He tucks into his meal, placing his arms on the table in such a way that they surround his food, protectively. Between bites, he tells me that he is a psychiatrist and has been involved in treating chemically dependent people for six years and that these are some of the best, smartest and most dedicated counselors he’s ever seen.
“You’re a shrink?” I’m stunned by this news. So then why . . . how? I don’t actually ask, but he seems to be able to read me.
“Yeah, at San Francisco General. Here for Valium. With shrinks, it’s always the Valium that takes you down. Occupational hazard.”
For some reason, I never considered that any of this could happen to a doctor. I buy the whole white jacket, stethoscope slung around the neck, double-parked Saab convertible thing.
“Then it was, ‘ . . . one Valium for you . . . two for me.”
He’s not some nut. He’s a doctor.
“That became ‘one Valium for you . . . five for me.”
Oh my God, I think, that’s exactly the kind of bartender I would be.
He looks down at his tray and continues. “At the end, which was a little over two weeks ago, I was swallowing all of my patients’ Valiums, about twenty a day, and giving them aspirin instead. I got caught.” He brings his eyes up to meet mine and I see sorrow in them. Sorrow edged with fear. “I might lose my license.”
Sometimes there is nothing else to say except, “Oh.”
We spend the next five minutes in silence, eating. He asks me to pass the pepper.
I drop my napkin on the floor and lean over to pick it up. I finish before he does because I only sip the starchy white broth around
the corn in the soup. It’ll be easy to play Karen Carpenter in this place—I bet I get down to ninety pounds by the time I leave.
I watch him stab an overcooked green bean with his fork and the gesture strikes me as tragic. Suddenly, there is a buzzing in my chest. As if wasps are trapped inside of me, stinging. That a doctor could sink so low. I mean, what does that say about me? Surely, an advertising guy would sink even lower. “I really don’t like it here,” I tell him.
He looks at me like he knows something, but won’t tell.
I go on. “It’s dilapidated, unprofessional—and the people. I don’t know. It’s not what I expected.”
He stands up, bringing his tray with him. I do the same and we walk to the trash area, dump our plates.
“It’ll take a few days, but you’ll see. You’ll get it.”
A skinny woman with long, dark, straight hair grabs Dr. Valium by the arm and whispers something in his ear. He cracks up and they head off down the hallway together, her arm around his waist, laughing. “I’ll see you downstairs,” he calls back to me.
I think about what Dr. Valium just told me. “It’ll take a few days, but you’ll see. You’ll get it.”
This is probably exactly what the Reverend Jim Jones said to his followers as he stirred the Kool-Aid.
It’s called simply “Affirmations.” There’s a nighttime Affirmations and a morning Affirmations. I was lucky enough to miss the morning show.
I’m sitting upstairs in the main room with all the other patients. Marion, the large woman who can only make eye contact with the carpeting, is obviously the “leader” of this group. She begins by asking out loud, “Who would like to volunteer to read tonight’s affirmation?”