“You gotta understand, I’ve never been anywhere I felt comfortable. I was born in a place called Synanon and we didn’t even know our parents and then we had to escape when I was almost seven. We moved constantly. Our mother was very depressed; our stepdad was a drunk and he disappeared, or died. We never even knew. So anyway, I always felt like an outsider, this strange kid from this strange place, angry at the world in hand-me-down clothes. And then I had that one drink, that Thunderbird wine, and for once I felt like I belonged. I felt comfortable in my own skin. Literally from that moment on nothing else mattered.”
He tells the whole story, drinking in high school, the rebelliousness and anger, the sense like he was trying to extinguish something. He talks about the years of being a “functional” addict, of holding down a job and paying rent while getting drunk every night. Then came the pills. Percocet and Vicodin. Two became five became ten became forty-five a day.
He pauses when he mentions his son. A pain fills his blue eyes, a straining. He wipes a small tear from behind his glasses. He gathers himself, drumming his fingers on the wood. The room is silent. “I think about my son every day. I know I was not in a place to be a good father to him. I wish so much I could’ve been. That one’s hard. You talk about regrets and I have some others but that’s the hardest one.” He clears his throat. “But all you can do is try to make amends. Try to deal with what’s real today. The truth is the shame of it, of knowing I could’ve done better by him, it was really hard to live with.” I can’t believe these are my brother’s words, this wisdom, this calm reflection, this strength.
“When I first tried heroin, it was the best thing I’d ever felt. I thought, Holy shit, now we’re talkin’. I don’t need to live and feel pain. I could just do this. But heroin will kill you quick. And it wasn’t six months before I felt like I was gonna die. And like the drinking, by the end it wasn’t even fun. You’re just sitting alone in an apartment trying to blot everything out. I knew I needed help. That if I didn’t get help, I would be dead. That’s probably why I’m here, if I’m completely honest. That’s probably the only reason I’m here. Because the only alternative was death. That’s how much the drugs and alcohol had a hold on me. In a way it’s easier this way, to know I have no choice.
“So I went to Brotman. I dried out in that room, just puking and shaking, feeling sicker than I’ve ever felt in my life. I couldn’t take methadone because my liver enzymes were so bad the doctors said it would kill me. We had group meetings every day but it was hard to listen; I was itching so bad to go out again and use. But I just kept coming back to, well, it’s either this or death. I chose to not be dead. But it was close.” He laughs. The room laughs.
“I started working steps, going to meetings every day, finding myself in these rooms with people who’d walked down the same road as me, who knew every lie I could tell myself or others to hide my habit. It’s tough, man. Especially in the beginning. You just kind of have to put your head down and do it. But after a few months I started sleeping again. I started feeling okay. Healthy, you know? And then a strange thing happened. I found I liked being with others, that it was so much better to be here with friends, with people who understand me than to be using alone in the dark. That’s the thing I always wanted anyway. To just be around people who understand me.”
All I can think as I watch him speak is how much I know about that dark place, how I’ve felt it and wished I had what he had. That there is so much in me that feels like it needs to be drowned out, so I keep the noise up.
“I don’t have all the answers,” he says. “Nobody does. All I can say is I’m here. I’m trying. I’m going to keep trying. And for those of you who are new, I can see you sitting there in the back, itching to get out and use again. I know you don’t know what to make of all this shit, all these fuckin’ weirdos talking about bullshit like serenity and acceptance and regret. These strange steps. Kinda touchy-feely, right? I just want to say, that’s where it’s at. In your feelings. We’ve all had those thoughts, the ones that tell you to say fuck it and drink or fuck it and go get high because otherwise what’s the point of just walking around feeling like you want to die? Listen, you have friends in this room. People who want to help. Everyone here knows what you’re going through because we’ve been through it too. You don’t have to be alone. You can come to a meeting. You can find a sponsor. I’ll sponsor you if you want. That’s why we’re here. And I promise you, this life is so much better than the one spent using in the dark. It’s good to be with people, among friends. My brother is here because I’m giving him my three-year chip.”
He looks at me. I am shaking. It’s all so familiar and real and I’m so glad he didn’t die and I remember how angry he was when we were kids and how abandoned he was at the School in Synanon, sitting alone on the playground with no mom or dad, how Mom turned him into a mental patient when we left, blaming him for his anger instead of acknowledging he had every reason in the world to be angry. I feel so proud of him now, in awe of his journey, so lost in mine.
“Anyway, I’m grateful. Grateful for tonight. Grateful for this program. Grateful for all of you. Thank you.” The room erupts in applause and the chair thanks him for speaking and someone brings a small chocolate cake from the back and gives it to me to give to him. I walk to the front and he blows out the candles and gives me a hug. He doesn’t let go, just squeezes me tight and says, “I love you, little bro. I don’t know where I’d be without you.” I kiss his cheek and tell him I’m proud of him and the room forms a giant circle and we all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer just like we did at the AA campouts when we were kids. When it’s over, he is mobbed by the young Dope Fiends who surround him like nervous children. They ask him questions, with a look in their eyes like the world depends on what he says next, like he has something they need to breathe.
They go outside to smoke and I sit in the chair in the front row and think about what he said, how far my life is from anything like the serenity or acceptance or peace he described, how much I live in that darkness, dancing around it like a moth around a flame.
* * *
GRANDMA JULIETTE DIED the week the tour ended. They called me and I drove over to the house in Westchester in a panic to see her with the breathing machine still pushing air into her nose. I pulled the tubes out of her nostrils because everyone seemed stunned, motionless, as if it wasn’t real as long as the machine did its work. I checked her pulse at her neck and told everyone she was gone and sat next to her in her little red sweatshirt, my arm around her shoulders as her spirit soared through the room while Aunt Nancy screamed and Bonnie cried in my father’s arms.
I felt her spirit again when we played the homecoming show at Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles five days later, her presence, the sense that she and my grandfather were dancing in the air above the audience, right next to that beautiful pipe organ shaped like an enormous haystack. I sang a song that reminded me of them, missing them, fully aware of how far I was from the thing they had, the thing I wish I could have: a partner, a friend, a great love to dance with in a beautiful place after I die.