The AA ballad of Hugo Schwyzer

My enduring silence on this past summer's Hugo Schwyzer debacle, has been wholly deliberate. For those who need the background, check it out HERE, HERE and HERE. (Warnings out the wazoo, as we say here in the South.)





One of those primary "recovery rules" is that you do not judge another addict, or doubt that they are sober.

Just look at the fallout here when I (correctly) called the cause of Brittany Murphy's death before it was official. I was considered ableist and out of line. (And when I was proven right, none of these people apologized to me either.) I learned from that, and decided I would be more circumspect the next time.

And so initially, I did not plan on saying anything at all about Hugo's now-famous, bizarre meltdown. But since then, folks have pointedly asked me for my opinion, since I mentioned him in my post about my own AA anniversary... and so I have now decided to comment at length.

~*~

At some point, I think after I read the famous jizz piece, I decided feminist-professor Hugo was using and/or drinking again.

The problem was (see Brittany Murphy, Michael Jackson, et al), these were undoubtedly perfectly-legal, professionally-vetted, prescribed meds that he had started abusing again... and this is one reason hard-core Alcoholics Anonymous people like my sponsor were so categorically anti-drug. Prescription drugs are still drugs. Of course there are always "good reasons" for them; I got a million Rxs in my life, with no trouble. Had good reasons for them all. Primary among these reasons: I was an addict, I wanted them, and I knew how to get them.

The onslaught of anti-depressants, sleeping aids and anti-anxiety meds for recovering addicts/alcoholics, has been an unmitigated disaster. Its also an old feud within AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous), as well as within other recovery circles. The concept is that people were "self-medicating" with alcohol (and so what else is new) and so they just needed the "correct" meds and ... then they somehow magically won't want those naughty "bad" drugs anymore. This is self-serving, narcissistic, addict-apologist bullshit. Always has been. Thing is, those of us who clung to this uncool, supposedly-outmoded view (that it's bullshit), invariably lost the war. Drugs flooded into recovery circles like the proverbial tidal wave. (NOTE: I have been alcohol-free for 32 years, and I refer to the advent of Prozac and similar drugs in the early 90s.)

At one point, I refused to sponsor people who were using prescription drugs to 'cushion their fall' into reality. And I learned (to my alarm) that I could spot them fairly easily. They didn't LEARN anything. They retained many/most of their negative personality-issues and character defects. They didn't "work on themselves"--and I think it's because, frankly, they didn't feel enough pain to find it necessary to change. Pain is instructional. Depression is instructional. Guilt and shame are instructional. When you do not allow yourself to FEEL these emotions/states of mind (self-medicating, the reason you drank in the first place), you do not learn the REASONS for them, which are usually: personality disorders, erroneous views of reality, childhood traumas left to fester and infect the psyche, self-esteem in the toilet, PTSD run amok, a puritanical/punitive world-view, etc. Drugs are a band-aid solution. As soon as I would get close to any of these issues in a sponsoree, they would have a meltdown (much like Hugo's!) and then go robotic; that particular, tell-tale type of robotic-reaction that is made possible by the psychological BUFFER OF CHEMICALS that is DRUGS.

No work could get done.

"I think I have PTSD," says the recovering person.

"Let's work on it," I'd say.

(((HYSTERIA))) followed by the robotic, predictably drugged-up countenance.

Like clockwork.

I would finally cut them loose, and I'd say, get another sponsor or come back to me when you cut out the drugs. I don't care if Sigmund fucking Freud himself gave them to you, NO. I will not work with people who are buffering the world with drugs. WON'T DO IT. And most of these people would hang around awhile, then leave. This has become known as the "revolving door of recovery"--because it just happens over and over and these people never learn to DO WITHOUT SUBSTANCES. TOTALLY.

At this point, readers are thinking/saying, "You are not a professional! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" And they are right. I am not. That is how AA works, and how it worked for me. I do not go to professionals, I do not BELIEVE in bullshit elitist, over-educated professionals, who have over-prescribed drugs to the point that we now have multiple-epidemics of junkies on the level we have never before had in history. PROFESSIONALS ARE PART OF THE FUCKING PROBLEM. I believe in peers, I believe in equality, I believe in people who have been through what I have been through, I believe in the power of regular human beings connecting with each other. That is what worked for me, and I still believe in it. Professionals pretty much destroyed AA, as did the courts forcing people to attend meetings after being arrested for drunken driving or drug possession (in direct violation of the 11th Tradition, which originally stated that AA membership should be based on "attraction rather than promotion"). The overarching resentment of these court-ordered maybe-alcoholics just smoldered, and their anger was palpable in many meetings, destroying the cozy family-atmosphere we once enjoyed. Meanwhile, the professionals brought in all kinds of psychobabble and Dr Feelgood jargon, correcting the scruffy street-people and (ever so politely!) reinterpreting their experience for them with big words and medical concepts, alienating them even further.

As I said, unmitigated disaster.

In short, old style AA might have helped Hugo. The moment I learned he was still "on meds" (which I'm sure were duly prescribed by one of the all-holy and infallible professionals) --I knew the implosion was just a matter of time. I just waited for it, wincing, because I figured it would be a flame-out of Biblical proportions. (I have also been waiting for something like this from Glenn Beck, and he has disappointed me so far, unless he has been able to keep it out of the media.) I have seen countless of these in AA. It usually manifests in these kinds of people (Hugo and Glenn Beck), who make "recovery" part of their identity. It's okay to do this for awhile, even necessary at first. (e.g. I once saw myself as party animal, so it was necessary at first to see myself as recovery animal; I had to put something IN ITS PLACE as a substitution.) But eventually, the idea should be that we MOVE ON. (I have not been to an AA meeting in about a dozen years now.) After a decent length of time has passed, we should even be able to figure out if indeed a certain drug might be helpful and/or good for us. I am old, and my joints are falling apart; there ARE good drugs, and I fully understand that now. Similarly, a toke at the bluegrass concert, did not hurt me. I have learned the MIDDLE PATH at long last, but only because I made learning that a priority. I did not want to be dependent on AA (or drugs) my whole life. I know the important thing: my drug of choice, alcohol, and highly addictive drugs (Valium, sleeping pills, Oxys, opiates, meth, questionable "appetite suppressants" such as the now-disgraced Preludin, which I ate like candy) are totally off limits for me. I avoid them like the plague. I do not take any psych meds daily, since I believe they interfere with my judgement and make it more likely that I will forget this personal boundary and break this rule. I have managed to maintain my sobriety, although sometimes tenuous, through remembering my triggers: bad temper, familial stress (and attendant co-dependency; trying to run other people's lives to my specifications), feelings of inadequacy, hypochondria... and more importantly, I know where all of these traits came from and how they originated in my life (meaning: I no longer hate myself for them).

I DID THE WORK, SO I KNOW THESE THINGS.

Hugo didn't. So he doesn't.

One of his triggers: WOMEN. He should have been forbidden from any and all relationships for a period of time, until his sponsor told him it was safe, and then the sponsor should have properly vetted the relationship. No sex; celibacy until you figure out what sex is doing to your life and why you compulsively seek it out. (This is true for MEN AND WOMEN regarding what is called "sex addiction" --which often goes hand-in-hand with other addictions, just as co-dependency and eating disorders do.) I know, this sounds cultish, but THAT IS WHAT I MEAN: Hugo went to the new, improved (snark), Rxs-for-everybody AA, not the cold-showers-and-root-canal version I went to in 1982. When I entered AA, NOT cooperating was really not an option if you wanted to hang around for an extended length of time. The Alcoholics Anonymous I went to was categorical: No serious decisions for a year. This rule includes jobs (if you are employed, do not change jobs or quit your job; if unemployed, try to stretch this out as long as you can), relationships (no changing them, no divorces, no "falling in love", no fucking around), and living arrangements, unless you are in an emergency situation (and many addicts are). Every stress-making decision was talked over carefully first, in meetings or with your sponsor. Everything you did and thought was thoroughly interrogated and examined, first by yourself, and if you still weren't sure, you brought it to "group conscience." [When I was faced with attending my grandmother's wake in Indiana, after only six slim months of sobriety, I fully realized this would be a rowdy and hyper-emotional occasion in MY hard-drinking family. The group counseled me, en masse, do not stay with a family member, stay in a motel instead. Wow, I said, isn't that RUDE? Someone replied, "Is getting howling drunk and fucking everything up rude?" Hmm, good point. I stayed in the motel. I managed. It was okay. I got through it, and the group's collective wisdom was the reason why.]

It was a hard-ass approach, but it is the one I think is necessary, because ADDICTS LIE TO THEMSELVES EVEN MORE THAN THEY DO TO EVERYONE ELSE.

And that way of life now seems extinct. I mourn its loss. It might have saved Hugo.

This is why I did not initially comment on Hugo's flame-out, because I knew I would have to say all of this. I think recovery itself FAILED HUGO, because it got soft.

In fact, let me be clear: the new and improved (snark again) recovery was TAILOR MADE for attention-whores like him. He then could use the fact of recovery to become a star and pump up his self-importance and toxic ego even more. For some of us, particularly down here in the working classes, addiction and alcoholism are still stigmatized; even admitting it is in your past, is still stigmatized. I often do not tell people, unless they finally ask me if there is a reason I never drink.

We don't have "stars" in the working classes (who do not eventually become recovery professionals themselves)... you have to be an academic or writer or media-figure to be a "recovery star"--and Hugo was. He used this fact about himself to boost his star-appeal, which tells me that he still hadn't worked on one of his major personality defects: attention-whoredom.

This has been difficult to write. In AA circles, what I have just done is called "taking Hugo's inventory" and is considered really bad form. I apologize, but felt it was necessary after I was asked the 6th or 7th time, and by people I deeply respect. I "defended" Hugo the last time (actually I just said he needed to be able to write honestly about what had happened--although interestingly, I don't). After his most recent flip-out, a couple of people got nasty with me and asked me if I had rescinded that post. No, I haven't--but then, I was writing it about someone I thought was actually recovering. (Notably: I had not seen the infamous jizz piece at that time.)

I would issue a warning, just in general: If you see people leave AA and then take up with some hard-core religion? Warning. DANGER. This person needs rules and boundaries, and they feel they are not getting them. So, they/we go where there are rules, lots and lots of rules. I did, my sponsor did, Glenn Beck did, and I notice, Hugo did. It is NEVER a good sign. It can work for some of us, as a sort of "transition out" of AA, a halfway-house into the regular world. But for others, it just means CARTE BLANCHE and gives them a whole new playground to play in. Aha, they think, I just needed GOD! I was never an alcoholic, I just needed JEEZUS! (And since we know that now, why not have a drink to celebrate?)

Watch out. As the Grateful Dead song said, trouble ahead, trouble behind. Hugo easily found the trouble, and took a nice long bath in it.

If AA had stayed true to itself, the revolving door of recovery would not exist, and the revolving door into the Church/Synagogue/Mosque/Ashram wouldn't either. As it is, we have all been betrayed, and Big Pharm bears a lot of the blame. But we have also lost our way, we have also declined the rougher, more unpleasant aspects of recovery, such as taking a big, bold look at ourselves as we really and truly are, putting all those pesky psychic-dramas under the microscope for close inspection. We have not wanted to look at the damage we have done--at least I never did. This means people like Hugo can write dramatic accounts of almost-murder/suicides and make them sound like Movies-of-the-Week, instead of the horrific, desperate acts they actually are (if his dramatic tale is true at all, of course. I have come to doubt it, or at least, wonder what parts of the story were edited/left out/trumped up, etc.)

I hope this is a satisfactory reply to the people who have asked me to comment on Hugo. I did not mean it to be so long... but then again, that is why I didn't want to write about him in the first place. I do see Hugo as a casualty of his own hubris... but the difference is, in the old days, he couldn't have used recovery as an excuse to GET WORSE. And now, it seems to be a rather common phenomenon.

I weep for those of us who will never recover. I hope Hugo can. But first, he needs to shut up, and for a good long time, too. Attention is his enemy. Although for some, it is a balm, since they were often totally ignored and relegated to the back of the room. That's the thing: One size does not fit all.

And once upon a time, AA knew that and counseled us accordingly.

I miss those days.

I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight

Atlanta Rhythm Section - I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight



Congratulate me on not letting myself get all stirred up by online insanity (and getting called the b-word). Getting a jump on my New Year's resolution, which is not to let anger control me or rule me, as it has in the past. NO MORE. I won the first round and I am proud of myself.

As the 12 steps counsel us: One day at a time. I can refrain from anger for one night, can't I?

I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight. :)

Half Step Productions

.... is the name of our new PRODUCTION COMPANY, yeah!

This is a reference to the Grateful Dead song (below) as well as a covert 12-Step reference.

It used to be said, in 12-Step circles, that whenever you 'worked' a particular step of the 12 Steps in a half-hearted or otherwise incomplete, namby-pamby fashion, you were taking a "half-step." I don't know if this slang is still in use. I always liked the term because of the song, even if it was considered a put-down; I figured a half-step is better than none at all. (Humorous aside: "13th step" was when a sponsor and sponsoree decided to get it on.)

When my talented consigliere, Gregg Jocoy, asked me what the name of the production company should be, the song was playing (on the radio show) and of course, it just seemed right.

~*~

Grateful Dead - Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo (Studio)

Betty Ford 1918-2011

I was 24 years old when I walked into my first AA meeting. Too young?

Certainly, I already looked like I belonged there, swathed in discarded old scarves like some pitiful hippie-ragamuffin. Although it was dark, icy and cold--January in Ohio--I had walked to the meeting at St Aloysius on West Broad Street. That fact seemed to impress the people at the meeting more than anything I had actually said, which was likely a jumble of drug-addled gibberish that made no sense.

I held onto the one hope I had: too young? Am I too young?

And then, she just sort of settled into my mind. Her presence. It was like she was with me.

The president's wife, you nitwit. It could be anyone. Anyone.
A-N-Y-O-N-E. Any age, any sex, anywhere; there is no membership requirement except the desire to stop drinking.

But... but...

Shut UP, said my conscience, eager to win one for a change. Shut UP. The president's fucking wife.

Anyone.

And she remained there, a presence in my consciousness, a presence occupying my head without my full realization... until now. And she is gone.

Betty Ford was crucial to me, to us. She was so important, possibly the most important person in the American recovery movement save for the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because she was Anyone. She was the respectable person who passed out at a dinner given in her honor. She was a rich man's wife who started to drink to deal with social pressures. And she wasn't Dick Van Dyke or Robert Downey Jr, either, she was a WOMAN. A lady. She had been, after all, the First Lady.

If it could happen to her, it could happen to you. (And do you know how many times I have heard that phrase, in meetings, in monologues, in phone conversations? I have said it myself, and it has been said to me.) Why do you think it couldn't? Who do you think you are? Of course it could. Luck, goodness, intelligence, class, decency, none of that means squat: you can't handle it, leave it alone. Even she had to. It could be anyone.

Anyone.

And how many lives were saved, all because we could point to her and confidently announce, ANYONE? Her presence, her life, became an object lesson for millions... certainly, it was very important to me, to know that she was in our ranks. See? I'm not the only girl! (In 1982, it often felt like I was.)

My deep affection and love for this woman is hard to convey. Her simple honesty and her life lessons, helped so many of us. Just her presence, in our minds, meant so much.

Her legacy overshadows her husband's easily.

Rest in peace.

Passages Malibu: Detox as Vacation, maybe

I've been terribly curious about that obnoxious, loud-mouthed guy in the TV commercials who claims he can CURE alcoholism, but only in Malibu. Hm. He can cure you in Malibu, but not in Detroit or Chattanooga? Now, why is that? Is Malibu crucial to his special, newfangled cure in some intrinsic way?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it is. He can charge you Malibu prices. A dry-out session at Passages will cost you $67,550 a month.

((((coughs)))) You say WHAT?!?!

I repeat, $67,550 a month. And that was the 2008 rate, before the economy tanked.

I started thinking it was a pricey hang-out for rich pill-poppers, when I took note of the placement of the TV commercials. Many of these are conspicuously broadcast during politically-oriented TV programming, such as the Sunday morning talk shows. (Are politicians all on drugs? Are political-junkies more likely to have this problem, or has marketing research shown that viewers of these shows have more money than the majority?) There he is, blustery Chris Prentiss, whom Hyman Roth might have categorized as headstrong, talking loud, saying stupid things. He doesn't believe in the disease concept of addiction, and he won't be so rude as to call you a drunk or a junkie, which are mean, unkind words.

From the Passages website (and click over and have a look at that spread of his):

Our treatment program is not like any other in the world for many reasons. We are not 12-step based, we won’t place you in groups all day that preach the disease concept of addiction, and place degrading labels on you like addict or alcoholic. You’re better than that, and along with being free from addiction; you deserve to be free of the labels as well. For most of you that will be refreshing to hear, for others, maybe not, perhaps you still want to wear the label of addict and alcoholic even after you’re sober, such as they do in the 12-step programs, if this is the case, then we may not be right for you. If you are ready to lose the identity of addict or alcoholic, achieve lasting sobriety, and live a life of health and happiness, then we are right for you.

Uh huh. Just change those nasty, judgmental labels, and you will feel better right from the get-go!

Just like Mel Gibson, who I am sure feels so much better right now, she giggled in mean-spiritedness. Those damn LABELS are the problem!

Let me interrupt here, with my 28 years of sobriety, admittedly dotted with some spotty pill-popping and pot-smoking. I think I qualify to argue with this guy, since I think he is dangerously WRONG. But of course, he is financially RIGHT, isn't he? And I truly don't believe he CARES if he is wrong, dangerously or otherwise, but now I am getting ahead of the story.

If you are an addict, then you are. Period. You can call yourself polka-dotted or you can call yourself a Martian, or you can call yourself not-an-addict, and that does not make these statements real or true, and further, in your heart of hearts, you know it. NOT taking the dreaded LABEL does not mean you are not regarded by EVERYONE ELSE as an alcoholic or addict. Lots of alcoholics/addicts, perhaps even the MAJORITY, never claim the label of "alcoholic", but just ask anyone around them: their families, their employers, their friends. Is so-and-so an alcoholic? And they will tell you, straight up. This is the psychology of the intervention: other people correlate the facts and there is a laundry-list of your offenses, directly related to alcoholism and drug-use. No wiggle room given, when they throw you out of the commune and say, point blank, IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE DRUNK ALL THE TIME. YOU STOLE FROM ME. YOU DISRUPTED MY BIRTHDAY PARTY, etc etc etc. It's hard to listen, but as the offenses pile up, you are forced to hear them. They are true. Everyone else is not "wrong"--while you are the only one in the right; this is not logical. Facts are facts.

Fact: Your life is out of your control, or you wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. Why are you so concerned about LABELS at a time like this? You cannot keep on passing out and waking up in places like South Dakota or New York City (true stories of mine). Aren't you worried about dying or getting killed? Isn't your LIFE more important than whether you wear some damn LABEL? If it isn't, maybe you don't deserve to have a life, and adios. Stop wasting everyone's time, money and resources. BYE! (Sorry, the hard-ass 12-step sponsor emerges from time to time, even if I haven't been to a meeting in 8 years or something.)

If you are in such dire straits that you are spending close to $70,000 to get clean, you are an addict. Is this really in dispute? Certainly, I never spent money like that, even in the depths of alcoholism. If I HAD, I hope I would have the presence of mind to admit that I was indeed extremely desperate... and I hope everyone understands that DESPERATION is what we are discussing here. People do not spend that kind of money unless they are 1) rich people who want to get their relatives/employers/whoever off their backs in the short run and figure this might do it, or 2) desperate junkies who have tried everything else.

But this makes me very glad I was a poor addict, rather than a rich one (see post here, near the end, for my observations on that phenomenon). In the end, I was homeless, and homelessness makes for a unique sort of desperation, not the desperation of the rich movie-star or business executive... but desperation that concentrates the mind in a certain way that cuts out all the self-aggrandizing, egotistical bullshit. TIME TO DEAL.

I am grateful this happened to me, and I saw clearly. In Alcoholics Anonymous, this is known as a MOMENT OF CLARITY.

Perhaps the Passages people never get one of those. Do they?

I found a very informative article titled Addiction: Buying the Cure at Passages Malibu in LA Weekly, written by Mark Groubert. (There are 199 comments, also worth your time, if this subject interests you as much as it does me.)

The Groubert article is some fascinating reading:

Inside the cavernous main hall — there are two other buildings on the 10-acre facility — are yet more columns, a cascading staircase and a gaggle of pretty young guys and gals. These are the personal assistants. Each client at Passages gets his or her own personal assistant, which is kinda cool when you’ve been hammer-heading (combining Ecstasy and Viagra) for months and need a Himalayan goji-berry cocktail brought quickly to your bedside so you don’t miss the next installment of Intervention on your personal 46-inch plasma TV while waiting for your kick meds to kick in. The 29 comfortable beds here are currently filled with patients who pay $67,550 a month for them. Passages, owned and run by Chris Prentiss and his son Pax, is the most expensive, luxurious and controversial residential drug-treatment center in the world.

The Prentisses are the Holocaust deniers of the addiction-recovery industry. They deny the existence of addiction. They deny the existence of alcoholism. They deny that it is a disease, or that it is incurable.

...

“Doctors and scientists are still treating alcoholism as if it is the problem, when it has nothing at all to do with the problem,” Prentiss tells me. “They might as well be studying scratchism for people who have a chronic itch.” Prentiss insists that one of his major goals is to “see the word alcoholism eliminated from the English language.”

...

Prentiss immediately tells me the I Ching is “the greatest book ever written,” that “it tells the future with 100 percent accuracy.” He tells me he has written more books on the I Ching than any writer in the world. I wonder if that’s true, seeing as how I am currently surrounded by I Ching books written by an author named Wu Wei —titles like I Ching Wisdom and I Ching Life, I Ching Readings, The I Ching Workbook, The I Ching: The Book of Answers. Wu Wei, it turns out, is Prentiss’ pen name. It means “no name.” All his books are self-published under his own imprint, Power Press.

Ah, so Prentiss is a self-styled California GURU too. Why am I not surprised?

Prentiss now tells me how his system of workshops and therapy can actually cure addiction: “Our powerful treatment methods provide total recovery from addiction through intensive individualized therapy. Our fully customized treatment program first discovers and then heals the underlying causes of a person’s addiction using one-on-one therapy.”

Confused by Prentiss’ claims, I later call Dr. Drew Pinsky, [1] the noted addiction specialist. When I read Prentiss’ statement to Pinsky, he states emphatically, “There’s no evidence that aggressive therapeutic intervention early in the course of addiction does anything but make addicts want to get loaded more.”

Of all his offbeat claims, Prentiss’ “success rate” may be his most outlandish. In an industry where reputable facilities such as the Betty Ford Center and Hazelden wouldn’t dare claim even a 25 percent cure rate, Prentiss sticks to his guns. He looks me square in the eyes and says: “We have an 84.4 percent success rate since we opened our doors in 2001, the highest in the world.”

I really love that .4 that he adds to the high number, really makes it sound scientific.

Prentiss says his cure rate is based on the latest survey involving 700 of his graduates, with whom he keeps in contact through phone calls and alumni gatherings.

I ask him how he could statistically compare someone who left his rehab sober seven years ago with someone who graduates tomorrow having spent 30 days off drugs. In 12-step programs, the person with 30 days sober is considered to be in the infancy of his or her sobriety. Prentiss doesn’t see it that way. Once the car comes off the assembly line, it’s ready to drive.

“It’s easy,” he grins. “They’re both cured.”

Well, there you go.

That well-known "revolving door of detox" we've all heard of in AA? Just old wives tales. One visit to detox, 25 visits, all the same. You're CURED, baby! [2]

The stories of suffering individuals who have spent astronomical amounts of money on this half-baked bullshit [4] are very disturbing and make me wish these folks could file malpractice lawsuits.

Despite the pressure to stay another month, [Passages patient] Billy took part in the talking-stick ceremony after 60 days and some $100,000 of his parents’ money. One of the first things Billy did to celebrate was to smoke two eight balls of crack in a reunion with three other “cured” grads after renting a luxury hotel room on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Combined, the four upscale crack heads had spent more than $300,000 on the Passages cure. The two eight balls, by contrast, cost around 500 bucks.

One fellow named Stuart spent around a quarter million on two stays at Passages, about six years ago. Interestingly, at that time, AA meetings were part of the process!

So what happened?

“When I was there, we did six or seven [A.A.] meetings a week. Two or three in-house and the rest out,” he says. “And they were mandatory. When Chris wrote his book [The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure],that ended. That’s when he decided A.A. was the villain, because he decided he could make a fortune if he just claimed he had found the cure for alcoholism.”

The business executive continues in an upbeat, almost appreciative tone: “Chris has a brilliant scheme that they have cooked up there. He has the perfect sales pitch.” His voice suddenly drops. “I know. I fell into it. It’s a beautiful sales pitch when someone is at the end of their rope.”

When I tell Stuart I couldn’t find any of the success stories Prentiss brags about, he tells me, “People come in there, they fail and nobody can call him on it. He’s got clients with confidentiality agreements to hide behind.”

Stuart believes the word CURE was the marketable innovation, and of course, AA does not believe in cures, so Passages and AA were then at odds. "Chris was having trouble filling the beds, and the minute he changed the message, they filled to the brim. He created a cash machine,” Stuart says.

Stuart is now an AA member, and feels he must expose the 84.4% fib.

“I scraped ex-clients out of seedy hotels, that’s why I have firsthand knowledge. I actually cleaned up the mess. The first thing they would say to me was, ‘Omigod, I relapsed,’ and the second thing was, ‘Please don’t tell anyone at Passages. Chris will be disappointed in me. I must be hopeless.’ They believed the 85 percent cure rate and felt like complete losers.”

I dearly wish this scam could be exposed further. I'd love to stop seeing the extremely pricey commercials for their extremely pricey "cure" every Sunday.

And if these advertisements were about a cure for cancer? Diabetes? Asthma? Eczema even?

Would they be allowed to claim cures on expensive network television?

Don't make me laugh.






~*~

Notes:


[1] In the article, Groubert notes that Dr Pinsky and the Prentisses squared off on Paula Zahn's TV show:

“I think [Prentiss] said it wasn’t a disease,” said Pinsky, somewhat amused. “I don’t know what you can cure other than diseases.”

HAHAHA! Good shot, Doctor!

[2] One of my personal pet peeves is when smokers claim they have quit 10 (or however many) times, so yes, they know how, and of course (wait for it!), they can quit any time they want to!

I always correct them. As an ex-smoker, I cannot restrain myself from pointing out the error: No, you TRIED to quit smoking 10 times, and you failed, or you wouldn't still be smoking.

To me, this is a simple delineation, but I guess it's too difficult for Chris and Pax to understand (or perhaps it's just not in their economic interests to get it).

[3] To be clear, Passages is just one of many elite, resort-type treatment centers for celebrities in the area that specialize in pampering. By contrast, at Betty Ford, even the rich and famous must take out the trash, but no such demeaning work will be required by these swanky resort outfits, which I gather is a major reason they exist.

I know how eye-rollingly humorous it is, when Alice Cooper or Robin Williams or someone comes out of rehab, all starry-eyed about how, wow, I took out my own trash for the first time since I was a kid! But that is part of the process for such people, taking them down off their high-horses and reminding them that they are fallible human beings like everyone else. This is crucial to recovery for a person accustomed to being idolized. Because if you are super-human, you can therefore take super-human amounts of chemicals and endure, right? This is thinking like a drug addict, and puncturing such depraved-thinking is necessary. Taking out the trash and washing dishes is a good place to start.

As we can see from the link, Lindsey Lohan getting perpetually waited-on did nothing for her sobriety.

[4] Hey boys and girls out there, don't forget: Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are FREE. FREE FREE FREE. In the big cities, you can walk to meetings at nearly any time, within minutes. And some of them will have coffee and donuts, and they will be FREE too. (Since they understand addiction intimately, they ASSUME you are poor already, and they are usually right.) Recovery in AA will not cost you a red cent, unless you feel like donating. And donations is what the organization is built on.

Just a friendly reminder, in case you need one. :)

Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me

Just when I thought it was safe to come back to the blog, another nasty comment this morning. Honestly, loyal troll-readers, I have absolutely no interest in what you have to say, and I now enjoy consigning your comments to the abyss. No more First Amendment Guilt for Daisy! Yes, I once tossed and turned at night, torturing myself over whether I was unfairly denying people their right to insult me, but no longer. Once again, be advised.

Perhaps it is just impossible to have a public blog without assholes invading. I mean, that happens everyplace else, doesn't it? As my late mentor, Steve Conliff, used to say (he was specifically talking about the Yippies, but it's a great adage to keep in mind): If you let anybody in, then anybody will come in. I've noticed, over the years, that this is a rock-solid truth.

The troll was pissed off about my "lack of awareness" about fat; the continuing drama and foofaraw around this post. Never mind that I have probably been much fatter than the troll, for much longer. Trolls know everything, including what you should be blogging about.

I have NOT turned this blog into a "diet blog"--nor will I. But it's quite amazing to me that it is now apparently considered EVIL to try to heal oneself of something one considers limiting and debilitating. (?) Some of the "big" feminist and progressive bloggers constantly reference working out and doing yoga. Why are they allowed to do this without being censured, but I'm not? Amanda Marcotte looks like she weighs maybe 95 lbs soaking wet; you gonna climb her ass over her little wispy frame? Why doesn't she gain weight in solidarity with fat women? (Is that the next demand? Kit Reed's very witty short story titled "The Food Farm", comes to mind.) I can find twenty million lefty blogs in which the author talks about getting in shape for grueling triathlons, weight-training, marathons, 5K runs, afternoon yoga sessions, tennis, hiking, you name it. Speaking of class, God forbid some old working class redneck thinks any of this might be for her, too: You just stay fat, retail-worker grandma, and stay OUT of our 5K marathons! You just don't understand fat awareness, barked the rail-thin marathon-runner as they whizzed by. Um, okay.

The person who left the nasty comment this morning self-righteously announced that my awareness of "fat and class" was lacking, but until I get a good answer for why I am singled out as a baaaad, baaaaad girl for trying to salvage my overworked, overstressed knees and feet ... while none of these other (middle-class, college educated) people are called on the carpet for looking like skinny movie stars... well, I politely invite all people who think I lack "fat awareness" to go fuck themselves.

And the direct question I posed in the comments of the aforementioned post, still stands: Do you have a 400+ lbs best friend you lost before their time? (Well, I guess if you did, you'd shut the hell up and understand where I'm coming from, now wouldn't you?)

Meanwhile, lovely Thene showed me this wonderful set of posts about fat from Greta Christina's very readable and fascinating blog. (Aside: At some point, I'd like to argue atheism/religion with this person, since she seems basically respectful, not like some nasty atheists I won't name, who call me vicious names as a confirmed sky-fairy [1] believer and refuse to dialogue in a polite fashion.) Greta Christina has already grappled with some of the "fat awareness" issues I find most confusing, and has (rationally!) deconstructed some of the arguments from the fat-positive movement that I find most disturbing and contradictory. I have quoted some excerpts I especially relate to.

From The Fat-Positive Skeptic (Part 2 of 2):

I completely agree that the fat-positive movement does often trivialize the very serious, extensively documented, no-joke health risks of being fat. I think they focus on their political ideology about bodies and feminism, at the expense of the actual scientific facts on the ground. I think they're often guilty of wishful thinking: of acting as if the mere act of saying "Fat is as healthy as not-fat" over and over again will somehow make it true, regardless of the medical evidence. And I think they dismiss the fact that, while it's fairly easy to be a healthy, active fat person in your youth, it gets increasingly harder as you get older.

Ohhhhhh goodness mercy yes. This is the crux of it, for me. I found it pertinent that the people who became so angry with me for daring to diet are all significantly younger than I am, and do not work on their feet all day. It does make a difference.

And in the post I linked above, I was trying to talk about the American Problem with Fat, which got me roasted alive. But Greta Christina gets it, and goes further in her analysis than I did:

It's helped for me to think of this as a political issue. It helps to remember that the multinational food corporations have spent decades carefully studying the abovementioned evolutionary food triggers, so they can manipulate me into buying and eating way more food than is good for me. It helps to think of weight loss, not as giving in to the mainstream cultural standards of female beauty, but as sending a big "Fuck You" to the purveyors of quadruple-patty hamburgers and Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick.

...

There's a weird circularity to the arguments as well. "Weight loss never works... but when it does work, it's harmful... but even if it would be beneficial, it doesn't matter, because it never works." And the arguments are rife with logical absurdities. If set points can get re-set upwards with crash diets or poor eating and exercise habits, then why can't they be re-set downwards? If it's okay to accidentally lose weight as a side effect of a "health at every size" food and exercise plan, then why is it so unhealthy to consciously lose weight... even if the "conscious weight loss" plan is identical to the "health at every size" plan? If weight is genetically determined and diet and exercise have nothing to do with it, then why have Americans become so much heavier in the last 50 and indeed 20 years... and why do other cultures who start eating an American diet almost immediately start putting on weight?

This IS what I was trying to say, and thanks to Thene for referring me to someone who has already said it far better than I could.

In her "Open Letter to the Fat Positive Movement", Great Christina writes:

In addition, an unsettling tendency has apparently developed in the fat-positive movement: a tendency to take the most extreme positions -- no matter how logically absurd or morally repugnant -- simply to avoid having to concede any points whatsoever. Many fat-positive advocates insist that weight loss never, ever, ever works. Others insist that there are no health problems caused by any degree of fatness. Still others insist that even if some health problems are caused or exacerbated by fatness, weight loss is never, ever, ever the more healthy choice for anyone to make. Ever. Even if you weigh 400 pounds and have had three heart attacks… you still shouldn't try to lose weight. And if you're me, if you weigh 200 pounds and are having serious mobility impairment due to knee problems and have exhausted all other treatment options for it... forget about it. It's better to have a fourth heart attack, it's better to gradually lose mobility over the years to the point where you can no longer climb stairs or walk more than a block, than it is to try to demonstrate that any belief of the fat-positive movement might be mistaken.

I was frankly shocked at how callous most of the fat-positive advocates were about my bad knee. I was shocked at how quick they were to ignore or dismiss it. They were passionately concerned about the quality of life I might lose if I counted calories or stopped eating chocolate bars every day. But when it came to the quality of life I might lose if I could no longer dance, climb hills, climb stairs, take long walks, walk at all? Eh. Whatever. I should try exercise or physical therapy or something. Oh, I'd tried those things already? Well, whatever.

This is alarmingly similar to what happened to me... all my whiny blogging about my painful knees and feet (the conditions that finally brought me to the conclusion that weight loss was worth pursuing) was patently ignored. Instead I got (more or less, distilled to its essence): "Fuck your knees and feet! Fat rules!" (This is actually a type of ideological fundamentalism, which is why an atheist blogger like Greta Christina can spot this line of defense in a line-up.)

It is not up to you to decide for me that the costs of losing weight are greater than the costs of losing my knee. It is not up to you to decide for me that the long odds against successful long-term weight loss (roughly 10 to 1) mean that my attempt to treat my bad knee by losing weight isn't worth it. My body. My right to decide.

Let me ask you this. If you read a post from a blogger saying that they were a heavy drinker, but it was adversely affecting their health and they'd decided to quit... would you send them comments and emails saying, "Don't bother, it's a waste of time and energy, the overwhelming majority of problem drinkers who try to quit eventually fail, and the ones who succeed get obsessed with it and have to go to all these meetings for the rest of their lives and aren't any fun to be around any more, and anyway the connection between heavy drinking and poor health has been totally made up by our anti- drinking society, so instead you should just focus on being the most healthy drinker you can be"?

If not -- then why would you say it to someone who's losing weight?

Actually, I did hear that from a few people back in the day, now that I think of it.[2]

And they were wrong. I stopped. And after an admittedly-long while, I stopped the meetings too; I learned what I needed to learn and moved on to another aspect of my life. I simply cannot imagine 1) taking a drink after 28 years and 2) going to an AA meeting after so many years of not going; those people are all strangers to me now. But according to the myth, once you get sober through AA, you are a lifelong 12-step slave. Not true. (This is why I call myself "12-step fugitive" in my bio.)

And I wholeheartedly agree with this:

[If] the fat-positive movement wants to be a serious voice of opposition to the current scientific consensus, it needs to stop denying reality. It needs to stop with the circular reasoning, the cherry-picking of data, the "all or nothing" thinking, the taking of good ideas to ridiculous and repugnant extremes, the logical absurdities, the elaborate rationalizations, the insularity, the flat denial of simple facts that are staring them in the face. It needs to be willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads... even if where it leads is unpleasant or upsetting. It needs to stop with the true believerism. It needs to treat the principles of fat positivity as hypotheses that can be debated -- not as articles of faith.

And I heartily wish it would do that.

Because we really, really need a sane, evidence- based, reality-based fat-positive movement.

AMEN, AMEN! Preach it, preach it! (jokey jokey with the atheists!) Seriously, she is just so right.

I really, really want to be part of a sane, evidence- based, reality- based fat-positive movement. But it looks like I may have to find a way to do that on my own.

Well, I had to learn to forge a new kind of sobriety on my own, one that didn't classify mostly-harmless reefer with cocaine; one that didn't interrogate every single antihistamine with "Am I high? OMG, did it make me high?" I'm sure the atheist will laugh when I say that I felt I needed to CONFESS to AA every time I took an antihistamine, rather like that other type of confession. (the more things change, the more they stay the same) [3]

My thanks to Greta Christina for her incisive take on fat. This is why we need the atheists, for this kind of cut-to-the-quick stuff. I just wish they'd admit they need us too, to keep things endlessly wacky and interesting! ;)

~*~



[1] I see nothing wrong with believing in sky-fairies. When the atheists call me a deluded sky-fairy believer, my reply is always the same: What's wrong with fairies? I like fairies. I do NOT want to live in a world without fairies, magic, and similarly delightful irrationality, which is my whole point. When we can get to THIS stage of the discussion, then we'll be getting somewhere. Why is human "rationality" (as historically defined by white, male, educated, bourgeois, heterosexual men, of course) any more real or ethical than supposed "irrationality"--since the most "rational" people in history have often turned into mass-murderers and had all kinds of logical, rational, pragmatic reasons for it (yes, I'm looking at you, Josef Mengele... a very rational man, by all accounts).

Rationality is an illusion, and this means the atheists believe in a sky-fairy called rationality--and that is no different than my belief in sky-fairies, saints and tarot cards. Really, it isn't. If you can convince me otherwise, I will take on all comers. Beware, been reading some heavy Buddhist texts, which I can add to the Cistercians, the Desert Fathers, Wittgenstein (I blame Philip K Dick for ever attempting to read Wittgenstein) and all that kinda intense philosophical gymnastics, so I'm ready, willing and able to defend my sky-fairies. BRING EM ON, as a major-movie character once said; I'd prefer a fair fight to all this sneaking around.

[2] Another criticism of AA, concerns the specific wording of the First Step: We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. For some inexplicable reason, the word powerless sends certain people into a frenzy.

If you are powerless over something, then you are, whether you choose to admit it or not. NOT admitting it, does not make it LESS true. The focus is on the ADMISSION. If it's not true, then it isn't... why should the word bother you? If it is, then admit it. NOT ADMITTING IT, DOES NOT MAGICALLY MAKE IT NOT SO.

The same is true for any other substance, of course... and I speak as one who quit multiple substances AT ONCE. I also speak as one who easily falls into the pattern of abusing substances, unless I am ultra-careful (they call this an "addictive personality"--ya think?). THIS INCLUDES FOOD, A SUBSTANCE. It is interesting that I never crave celery, but I do crave macaroni and cheese. I would venture to say that not all substances are created equal... a lesson I had to learn on my own, not from AA. But learn it I did.

[3] In Catholicism, this is known as having scruples. Apparently, as an Augustinian monk (before he permanently defected), Martin Luther used to spend hours and hours in the confessional, carefully going over every wayward thought. Finally (in disgust, no doubt) he decided to jettison the whole Sacrament of Confession: the hell with it! I guess he saw no other way out.

We are supposed to call it The Sacrament of Reconciliation now, but I don't know anyone who does.

[4] And of course you know that today's blog post title comes from the redoubtable QUEEN. (We miss you, Freddie!)

One of the Living

1) I can't find my phone.

2) My acid reflux has returned, I fear because I am drinking way too much Yerba Mate. (But I love it!)

3) I also love Multilieve (photo at left) an excellent natural pain-reducer, which contains Corydalis Yanhusuo, Chinese Peony and California Poppy.... (Wicked Witch of the West voice: poppies! poppies!) No, I have not been compensated with anything but free samples.

4) Currently reading Maureen Orth's too-fabulous gossip-ridden and scandalmongering book The Importance of Being Famous, which totally rocks the house! How did I ever miss this book when it came out in 2004?

Orth has completely convinced me of the guilt of Michael Jackson AND Woody Allen, sad to say; she is a tireless journalist and investigative reporter (these articles were first published in Vanity Fair). She also writes extensively about Arianna Huffington, claiming she has never totally extricated herself from new-age guru-flake John-Roger. This stuff is fantastic, I can't recommend it enough.

5) One chapter in the aforementioned volume is about Tina Turner, probably the only celebrity interviewed in the entire book who emerges as a wholly-likable person. I started reading and thought, hey (my mind works in strange ways), whatever happened to that song, One of the Living, which I remembered was written by 80s wunderkind Holly Knight. It was used in the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

And so I dug it out of the YouTube vaults and listened to it... damn, I still love that! Although it DOES bring back an unpleasant time in my life: my second divorce, just as I was starting to wonder if I could get along with anybody. During this emotionally-overwrought period, your humble narrator would sometimes attend as many as 2-3 AA meetings a day.

From one addiction to another.

Carrie Fisher once described what one does in detox/recovery: not drugs. And that is what I was doing. I was falling apart, financially destitute, with a child not even two years old and a divorce imminent, but I was ...NOT DOING DRUGS!

One nice person who commented on one of my irate Kennedy posts yesterday said "as a fellow 12-stepper" and I did not have the heart to tell this person that I no longer consider myself one. However, after you've done the TOTAL IMMERSION AA-thing (nods to Baptists in readership), you feel like you are stamped with it for life and it is somehow encoded in your DNA, just like LSD.

So, oddly, this song makes me think of AA meetings, one after the other, an endless balm of talk-talk-talk that soothed and tranquilized me in some way I can't readily or sensibly describe.

Don't wanna fight but sometimes you've got to
You're some soul survivor
There's just one thing you've got to know
You've got ten more thousand miles to go

As a bonus, we are reminded by this video that both Tina and Mel Gibson were looking especially hot back in the 80s.

Enjoy!

~*~

One of the Living - Tina Turner from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)



PS: Tina won a Grammy for this, which I didn't know, or didn't remember.

Stubborn old goats

No matter what I did, they resolutely refused to look at the camera.




My post on women going shirtless got major hits from Reddit, StumbleUpon and other link-sites. I think I hit a nerve, particularly in this kind of heat.

This also means, if I may borrow a line from Rancid: And out come the wolves. Trolls, trolls, everywhere. As I've said before, I used to be jealous of the Big Bloggers, until I fully understood what-all they have to put up with. Yech.

Highly amusing was watching the anti-feminist trolls try to figure out what they should be fussing about. Ordinarily, men are lusting for women to be naked, so....what exactly is the issue? Unfortunately, the thread's Head Troll has deleted all of his convoluted comments in a huff, or you could chortle at the logic: We shouldn't be showing our breasts because.... men like breasts. In other words, they might see some breasts they don't like! Another fascinating argument was all about hard-ons: Men have involuntary reactions to breasts! And of course, this means women should live their lives to make men's penises more comfortable at all times. When they want hard-ons, we should be stripping. When they don't, we shouldn't.

That seems easy enough to figure out, huh?

Meanwhile, let's hope some hearty gals out there start organizing some shirtless-days for women... as several posters noted on Reddit, they can't arrest everyone. This is the same way women started wearing pants: en masse. The only way.

It was the 8th grade. The note was passed: JEANS ON FRIDAY. That was all it said. We all knew, yes. Jeans on Friday. Only a couple of goodie-goodies primly preferred to continue "dressing as ladies"--although I noticed that a few years later, they were wearing jeans with the rest of us.

And so, we wore the jeans on Friday. Fat, thin, middle-class and poor. Rich jeans, poor jeans. And I remember that day very well, because all the girls grinned at each other: haha, look at us!

We just kept wearing them. We didn't stop.

About a month later, an official school announcement was read: Girls can wear pants now! We laughed our blue-jean-clad butts off; we were already wearing them! And then we learned something important (also applicable to laws like jay-walking and pot-smoking): Your "law" means shit if nobody follows it. [1]

We might do the same with the laws governing the exposure of women's chests. Can they arrest hundreds of women on a beach at the same time?

Actually, that might turn into quite a party!

~*~

Speaking of pot-smoking, the New York Times ran a big Reefer Madness pot addiction story last week. We were even warned that legal ganja would result in a rise in "fatalities"--and silly me, I wasn't aware there was ever ONE fatality from marijuana-overdose in the entire history of the known world.

For those of us who know from addiction, the NYT article was like the proverbial fun-house mirror, as they offered the example of someone who kept a residence, job and dog for 20 years as an "addict"... say what?

Can somebody say raise the bar?

One of the problems with AA turning everybody into an alcoholic in the late 80s (no, everyone isn't, even if you were barfing into the toilet a few more times than you intended), is this kind of nonsense. Addiction is something very specific, and there are signposts. When you are homeless (I was), can't keep a job (I couldn't), systematically drive away everyone who cares about you (I did), start getting sick all the time (oh dear God)--then you got trouble. [2]

Just being extremely bummed out? No. That is called depression, and self-medicating is a symptom.

I have no college degree and nevertheless, I understand this distinction. As they say, it isn't rocket science.

What it is: AA was colonized by the middle classes in the late 80s/early 90s. In these suburban enclaves, if someone dared to speak honestly about something like sleeping in their car for months at a time, or jacking mama's last 3 bucks, the middle-class, still-gainfully-employed types would shift uncomfortably in their seats. [3] If you wanted gritty reality, you had to go to the meetings with names like Darkness on the Edge of Town (apologies to The Boss). Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12-Steps became transformed into a lifestyle-thing, rather like eating organic.

For some reason, the 12-Steps seemed tailor-made for the narcissism of the affluent. They jumped into the process with aplomb, as if it was psychoanalysis. And in the meantime, you couldn't get a genuine addict or alcoholic to even read the 12-Steps out loud without pausing to argue with you about them.

And the 12-Steps changed, and AA changed... and someday, I will attempt to grapple with the whole subject, and my feelings about that. And why I stopped being an active member, as my beloved late sponsor also did (for religious reasons of her own).

I heartily recommend Elayne Rapping's book, The Culture of Recovery, Making Sense of the Self-Help Movement in Women's Lives, a feminist reading of this whole phenomenon. And I hope to revisit the topic at a future date.

~*~



[1] William F Buckley was (believe it or not) in favor of legalizing (and taxing) marijuana for that reason. He believed marijuana laws turned regular, law-abiding people into criminals. He said law served people, people do not serve law, and if a majority of people want pot, keeping it illegal eroded respect for authority and law. (Ya think?)

[2] Notice the very dramatic addiction-themed TV show Intervention doesn't bother with "marijuana addicts"--which as one of my friends said, would consist of an entire hour of potheads watching TV and eating bags of Cheetos. (The "intervention" would be someone's kids complaining that they had to change the kitty litter: Do you ever think of MY feelings?!?)

Not exactly cutting-edge reality TV. And the proof is in the pudding.

[3] An AA friend once told me about attending a "rich" AA meeting in Hollywood. One woman's idea of "hitting rock bottom" was the day she was forced to take the kids to McDonalds for supper. (People shook their heads, wow, that is terrible.)

Lord have mercy, can you believe anybody would FALL SO FAR?