Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [23]
“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