We've all suffered to some degree, have we not? We all have our share of pain and misery and loss in our stories, some to greater and others to a lesser degree. A common error made by those who have had more than their fair share of suffering is assuming that their travails are as significant and compelling to others as they are to them. An understandable misapprehension—we're all the stars of our own shows and it seems impossible that the world at large could be indifferent to our exquisite misery.
Nevertheless, the world goes on spinning as you suffer, and when you later recount the details of your anguish, isn't the reaction you get considerably more muted than what you feel a tale of such fortitude and endurance deserves?
I'm not the first person to write about drug addiction in this rag and I damn sure won't be the last, but I appear to be the only one who finds it hilarious. Now, before you lodge any accusations about me and my bona fides, I assure you I'm the real deal. I have spent 30-odd years actively addicted and have suffered greatly because of it. I could go overdose to overdose, dead body to dead body, abscess to abscess, and degradation to degradation with any junkie in the world, but I won't because there is exactly zero fucking nobility in the sufferings of a drug addict. It's self-inflicted, despite what all the weepers, whiners, and wailers moan about, all the beepers and squeakers and gnashers of teeth. Every time I find myself in another ditch or hospital bed or jail cell or barroom floor I am always painfully and finely aware of one thing — this did not have to happen. I brought it on myself: That fact alone elevates my "suffering" to comedy, at least in retrospect. It does take a bit of seasoning for the humor to manifest but it always does, and I find it incomprehensible that anyone could look at it otherwise. The behavior of the addict is the lowest of low comedy and the slappiest of slapstick: Stan Laurel kicking away his hat every time he reaches down to pick it up, or Homer Simpson spinning in circles in a vain attempt to read what's written on the back of his head. Only in the addict's own mind do his absurd escapades take on the mythic proportions of heroic suffering.
The problem of drug addiction and the social pathology it engenders is very real, and doing a fair job of eroding the foundations of society, but the problems of one junkie — whoever he or she may be — do not amount to a hill of beans.
A long time ago, a group of former users and boozers felt a hugely compelling need to recount in agonizingly excruciating detail their stories of loss and suffering and degradation and discomfort but noticed that when they did, people kept getting up and leaving the room. So they tried contriving situations in which people would find it difficult or impossible to leave. They invited their victims to islands only accessible at low tide, or remote desert locations, or dangerous urban centers late at night, but the intended audiences took ever more extreme measures to escape the tedium, piercing their eardrums with sharpened pencils, hurling themselves through open windows or into the ocean, and spontaneously combusting. "This is crazy," said the de facto leader of the nascent cult. "Look, I don't care if I have to kidnap and hogtie a new audience every night, someone is going to listen to my heartrending tale of how I had it all and lost it to demon rum. I don't care how many crimes I have to commit, how much money I have to spend, how many gods I have to invoke, or how many militias I have to establish to corral and concentrate these people, SOMEONE is going to LISTEN to me."
"Wait a minute, that's it!" said his number two, who had recently occupied a position of responsibility in Iran's Ministry of Torture.
"What, the militia? Good idea, start stringing the barbed wire, you set up the brainwashing stations."
"No, no, the God thing! People have to obey God! We'll convince everybody that God wants them to listen to us and forbids all interruptions or criticism, and the best way to serve Him is by sitting quietly and listening to our tales of woe."
"Excellent. How about we also make them pay for the privilege?"
"Genius! Now, let us steeple our fingers and chuckle menacingly. Heh, heh, heh."
"Indeed. Heh, heh, heh."
Thus was the Fellowship horn; and to this very day, all over the world, in hundreds of different languages, people are being forcibly bored out of their skulls by the umpty-millionth telling of My Addiction And How I By The Grace Of God And The Fellowship Conquered It.
In 2006, having recently graduated summa cum laude from the Ford Street Project's program of drug rehabilitation and slap-and-tickle, I was on the loose in Ukiah, clean, sober, and a member of the local Narcotics Anonymous community. My parole officer insisted I attend at least three meetings a week and it seemed to make her happy when I presented the little card to her proving I had, so I did. I didn't like it, but I figured, hell, it's an hour. I can do anything for an hour. I once watched Two-And-A-Half-Men for an hour, and while the resultant scar tissue on my brain rendered me unable to visualize the color magenta, I did live through it. I established a home group, dutifully plunked my dollars into the donation basket, and even did some coffee-making and chair-setting-up. I did not speak beyond the requisite introductions but I mostly managed to keep my eyes open and appear attentive, usually by either doing math problems in my head or keeping up a running internal commentary on the speaker's narrative.
Listening to the constant game of one-upmanship as each speaker tried to top the last in their tales of drugs ingested, assets lost, and injuries suffered at the hands of their "cunning, baffling, and powerful" foe, I identified several constants, being first that before they were laid low by whatever substance pulled the rug out from under them, they were all wildly successful with well-paying union jobs or thriving companies owned. And the cars! So much rolling iron lost to their addictions! Foreign luxury sedans, classic hot rods, monster pickup trucks. Motorcycles too, Harleys mostly, panheads, shovelheads, knuckleheads, all the heads. Few if any 15-year-old beaters of the type I used to pilot when I was fortunate enough to have a car, or the bikes or bus passes I used when I wasn't.
They all had beautiful homes and perfect lives. Nary a one ever struggled in the least until drugs got the better of them, which leads me to the next persistent claim. Everyone I've ever heard tell their story in a 12-step meeting has been declared dead (many use the term "legally dead") many times, and they love to outdo each other on this. "I was completely dead for ten minutes!"
"I was declared dead five times!"
"I had already been zipped into a body bag and was on my way to the morgue!"
"I was autopsied and about to be cremated when they revived me!"
Third, while they were active in their addictions, no one ever dealt in quantities of less than an ounce. They talk of pounds and kilos as casually as if they were groceries or cigarettes. I was forced to conclude that I'm the only guy in history ever to show up at the dealer's house like that kid in the old CrackerJack commercial, pulling out eleven crumpled ones, a handful of change, a couple of peepshow tokens and a coupon for a free sub and asking for a twenty sack. I guess only straight bailers and kingpins end up in those storied rooms.
So there I was, my face becoming a common enough sight at meetings that certain brave souls felt comfortable engaging me in conversation. One Sunday afternoon at Orchard Street I was chatting with a nice lady who asked me, "Have you ever been to the Tuesday night men's meeting?"
"Haven't had the pleasure," I admitted. And truly, it didn't really sound like my cup of tea. I find that single-sex assemblages of more than two people invariably lead to trouble. There's a reason why so many movies beginning with stag gatherings, like fishing trips or bachelor parties, end in murder. Men really are only interested in one thing, and when you take that thing off the docket, they are forced to fall back on the other only thing they are interested in — hurting and killing. Men without women are dangerous and women without men are mysterious and I think it's best for everyone that we all continue milling around in mixed groups and so protect us from ourselves. Look at the largest single-sex gatherings of all: prisons. Nothing good ever happens there.
"Oh you really need to go! That's where it gets real."
I find that the word "real," in contexts like the above, usually means something akin to "unpleasant" or "discomforting." Just being sober was about as much reality as I could stand, never mind a bunch of swingin' dongs trying to double up on it. No thank you. If there were a meeting called the Hello Kitty Phantasmagorical Splash-O-Rama, I'd'a been all over it.
At the next meeting I attended, I was again asked about the men's meeting and again assured of its realness. Then on Tuesday, I got a call from my sponsor. "Tonight's the men's meeting," he said. "I really think you should go. It really gets real."
It appeared the community at large was not going to be happy until I got real at the men's meeting so I gave in. "Fine, I'll be there. Gimme the damn coordinates," I said.
The meeting was held in a dim, dank, dark, greasy room in the back of a motorcycle repair shop. Very real. I arrived a few minutes late to avoid the pre-meeting chitchat and the first speaker was already chugging along. He looked like a combination of outlaw biker and shaman, with lots of leather and feathers and fringe and facial hair. The rest of the gathering looked like a mixture of construction workers and drivers of windowless vans—puffy, bespectacled types with mayhem lurking behind their wan exteriors.
Each speaker in turn recounted tales that were at best embarrassing, mostly criminal, and occasionally truly heinous. These guys placed a lot of faith in the principle of anonymity, and I couldn't wait to call all my girlfriends in the program and tell them what depraved and twisted characters lurked in these rooms.
The 8 o'clock hour drew nigh and I began the end-of-meeting stretch and forward attitude, but the current speaker, a weasely type with a voice like a dentist's drill run through a Leslie amp-speaker, was just hitting the straightaway in his story about stalking his cousin and no sign of slowing down. Eight o’clock came, waved bye-bye, and went, fading to a dot and then nothing in the rear-view. Nine o'clock approached. Somebody was droning on about wanting to kill everybody at his work. Nine o’clock arrived and nobody stood, no basket was passed or Lord's Prayer intoned. That's it, I thought. I've stood all I can stand and I can't stands no more. I stood, slapped my thighs decisively, and said, "Gentlemen, it has been real, but I gotta go.
I don't know if they're still holding the Tuesday Night Serial Killer Symposium and Shivaree, but trust me on this and give it a miss. That much reality is not good for anybody.
Here's some advice for all you former slammers, smokers, sots, tweakers, huffers, junkies, baseheads, pillpoppers, and boozehounds. Your stories, while I'm sure very significant and compelling to you, are all exactly the same. Heard one, heard 'em all. Now, the world does actually want something from you, and it's not confessions or tears or apologies. What is needed is for you to pull your head out and start contributing to society. Not self-recrimination or breast-beating. Take off the hair shirt and put on some interview clothes. Rejoin the world and for Pete's sake act like you've been here before.
FD&C Blues #3