NYE

Quitting drinking is not so hard that you can't do it, even if you're weak and dumb. It's not even painful, the way not being able to smoke is when you're in an airport in the middle of the country, on a one hour layover: you're "free to smoke", kind of, but chance striking one up a respectable distance outside the exterior doors of the baggage claim and you may or may not make it back through security in time for your connecting flight. So you don't, because you got the cheapest tickets you could possibly find on Expedia and there's no refund if you fuck it up. That, my friends, is real emotional turmoil. 

Not drinking is plain. Don't do it. But I want to. Don't. This would be a perfect moment for a drink. But you can't have one. What color should I paint my kitchen. 

Welcome to my internal dialogue. Our leader Bill has talked to us about flat or blunt affect, a very serious psychological condition that affects very boring people. Apparently. Bill says that he always mentions this to his people, because experiencing "recovery" invites all kinds of emotions that you've been numbing with drugs or alcohol forever. Sometimes though, when you stop, what you get is flat. 

This is a theme in his classes and I've been waiting for. "What have I been numbing?". I think of driving drunk 40 minutes down a major interstate highway at least once a week for three years. Or getting gross with wierdos in booths at "adult video arcades". I think of my body image problems, how I get skinny, make out with as many people as possible until I've had my fill, then get fat again. I've been hoping for this moment where it would be like, "WHAT IS MY PROBLEM" And Bill would say, "Your problem, it's this". And bam. There it would be. This is that moment for most of the people who, it seems, are my peers. They all seem to be having it, and good for them. They seem eager to explode into life again ("but not too eager!", as cautioned by Bill. Understand your very current situation before you make any major decision that could affect your recovery. To those who are single: NO RELATIONSHIPS...) 

This is not the side of the coin I expected to find myself on. I figured I'd either be clawing for booze and avoiding calls from people asking me to go out or get crazy back into the things that made me glad to be alive before I started drinking too much; hiking to a place where snow is from someplace where there is no snow, watching the land that I need to survive from a tiny plastic boat at natural sea level when the ocean can swallow me whole at any moment, going to shit towns in the middle of nowhere by myself, determined to find the one thing there is to love. Always, it was the thrift stores, or the chainsaw art monuments in the weird public parks to the current mayor or an Indian Chief or a grizzly bear that someone attacked and then, BLAMMO, the town was born. Later, it was the bars in these places. It was exciting to go someplace alone, a shit small logging town, and I'd chat up the locals. This was unsustainable, though, because I could not catch a buzz and safely drive down shitty highways alone for very long, so I stopped driving very far or going to too many new places. 

And now, there's this third side of the coin I didn't expect. I'm not diving into the old things I loved or fighting urges to do the dumb things that kind of wrecked me in the first place. I just have a lot of spare time on my hands. I'm obsessing about the color of my kitchen. 

It's NYE, and I'm spackling. I am painting the trim tonight and preparing the walls for tomorrow. I need some kind of something, so I've had 10 shots of espresso over the course of six hours. It made me a little euphoric at times, but mostly I'm just focused: THESE WALLS CANNOT BE RENTAL EGGSHELL. NOT ANYMORE. 

Tonight made me anxious days in advance. I made plans with nobody, and most people didn't invite me anyway, being kindly aware of my situation. A couple-buddy invited me to their hot tub party featuring shrooms. I kind of wanted to go in costume. Like a scientist with a zany mustache observing their activities and making notes. But more than anything I wanted to change my kitchen. 

So I bought paint, taped all the trim, antique knobs, antique handles, the glass, the baseboard heater, and I painted a door. I stared at it for awhile and for real, it looks cleaner than it did before. 

I am hyped up. Sexy new years espresso shots are pumping through me. 

I'm done. I'm not doing anything else. New Year's fireworks just exploded downtown and I don't care that I wasn't drunk at a friend's house or a bar. I also don't care that I was sober. I'm just angry that my kitchen isn't painted yet. 

A dry drunk is a personality type that Bill also likes to discuss. We're all at risk, he says, and I'm in danger, I know. 

HGTV

Rehab: Days 4/5/6

Bored: 20 days

I did not succumb to darkness this week. I did, however, have to complete 20 hours of community service so as not to go back to jail for three days. I completed exactly 20, down to the quarter-hour, exactly 12 hours before I was to report back to my cell. I do my best work under pressure. 

Not that jail was so bad. And, it was only a day. My cellmate who could speak English, I think he liked me before he found that out. After that, we watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel in our itchy uniforms on top of uncomfortable beds, and that we did in silence. Cable TV, sleeping for hours on end, taking shower after shower for lack of anything better to do, and a steady stream of resentment and silent spite. Not too different from a typical Saturday. 

But the Greyhound ride to get there is unbearable. No thank you. I'm happy to do almost anything for free for as long as you want to avoid being the captive audience for a busload of meth-mouths in the throes of acute withdrawal symptoms. Someone says "my tooth!" and you're checking your trail mix under inadequate lighting, thinking better of it and deciding to get a Snickers at the next gas station instead. 

So there has been no time to post, and there hasn't been much to write home about anyway. 

Horny girl was absent Monday but back on Friday with a black eye and flat-ironed hair, and though he threatened to toss her out of the program if she didn't shape up, Bob went pretty easy on her. Interesting. 

Ty Pennington is about to graduate to a more "high functioning" group. Good for him. I never did befriend him, but I did find out that he's only one year older than me which, weird. Anyway, congratulations, TP. 

Schlumpy and I are still not friends. 

Otherwise, we're still discussing the same concepts, and I'm still writing the same damn thing every day on my feedback forms. "I'm having trouble relating to the concepts we discussed and am eager to speak with somebody one on one regarding this". It's finally about to happen, so that ought to be interesting.  

I'm beginning to understand that the first "phase" of this treatment is the one that's supposed to get the people who don't want to be here, who will lose their kids or go to prison and that's the only reason they show up every day, it's to make those people understand that they really belong here. So I'm backwards in thinking that I belonged here on day one, and believing that less so as the program continues. For example:

Bob was talking on Friday about denial again. You all do it. You are all denialists. You should probably start saving big today for all your friends' birthdays, and for all the Mother's and Father's days you might be so lucky to live to see, because you owe everybody BIG TIME because all of you are assholes, manipulative users, and full-up to the brim with denial so rich, thick, and real that it nearly has an atomic structure. 

So Ty Pennington says "Actually, I think that was true of me years ago, but I've known I've been sitting at rock bottom for years, and I knew exactly why the whole time". And just when I was relieved that someone had said something I could relate to, Bob sets down the blue and picks up the reddest dry erase marker he can find. With the same righteous fervor a teacher might employ when shaming a dunce by writing "F MINUS MINUS MINUS MINUS" across the board, he writes, "THE PERVASIVE EXCEPTIONALIST". Bob asks, punching the air with the angry red tip of an Expo-brand dry erase marker, "What does this mean?!"

Someone says "That he's perverted?" so he immediately relents and explains. 

Apparently, Ty (and I, by proxy) is the most offensive kind of denier, because no matter the situation, It Doesn't Apply To Him (or Me). This is more of a discussion we started Monday but didn't finish about "types", like "the popular me" and the "charismatic user". It was a discussion that left me thinking about the personality quizzes I would take from my sister's Glamour magazine, when eleven-year-old-me would go up to my mom later and announce to her that I was a "dating perfectionist". 

Anyway, on the form Friday I wrote "Not to be all pervasively exceptional, but I'm still having trouble relating to the denial concepts we have been discussing and I'm VERY EAGER TO SPEAK TO SOMEBODY ONE ON ONE ABOUT THIS". 

So, I see my counselor before class tomorrow. Finally. 

Here's this: now that my community service is done and I'm not going back to jail, I'm considerably less stressed, and *that* seems to trigger the urge to drink. Last night after a very early workday and dinner and a movie with a friend, I found myself at home at six obsessing about the Makers and Coke available at the gastro-pub around the corner. It became so hard to bear after 40 minutes that I actually agreed to go to a hockey game to get myself out of the house. And even though we lost, I had a great time at the game. I wonder how many hockey games and other awesome, unlikely events I've missed over the years in favor of staying home and getting drunk watching HGTV.  

Habits of the highly ineffective

Rehab: Day three
Bored: 11 days

This is the first time in six years that I can write how long I've been bored using numeric characters instead of spelling it while not breaking the must-spell-out-all-numbers-less-than-ten rule. Kudos, me.

Not sure what I think about tonight. I'm exhausted. My t-shirt was too tight and I was uncomfortable the whole time. After a lecture about our expectations for the class, as well as a brief primer on some of the lingo people have been using (which, thank GOD, finally. So much of Monday and Wednesday was lost in translation because I had no idea what people were saying or how it pertained to me), we talked in depth about the habits and signs of addictive personalities.

I'll say that one thing that's always bothered me about recoveryville, at least the little that I know about it, is that everything you hear is so black and white. I might be off, but my understanding of AA, for example, is that you ARE an alcoholic and you MUST have this deep powwow with everyone in your life about your mistakes and regrets and you HAVE TO submit to a higher power or you WILL end up dirty, toothless, and rooting for cigarette butts in the planters outside office buildings downtown.

I think that things are more black and white than addicts would like to admit, but less so than recovery counselors insist. Tonight we discussed a bunch of major traits, and some I could relate to and some I couldn't. I felt like a failed addict, kind of. I can't do ANYTHING right. No, but seriously, folks. An impulse I had, but did not entertain for long, was that maybe this isn't really for me because a lot of this seriously does not apply. Like, I would never check the box on the form next to "Do you explode with rage while intoxicated or while suffering from the after-effects of intoxication?". I may seethe and engage in passive aggressive mental trickery, but no, I do not "explode with rage". The way this was delivered though, it was clear he wasn't interviewing us, but breaking it down for us: this is how you are.

Here's a better example. One of the characteristics of an addict is that nothing is your fault, and there's always a good reason to be engaging in your addictive behavior. It's always something that's being done to you, and not something you're choosing to do.

So not me. And he delivered it in a real "Gotcha!" kind of way, like he was totally laying down the truth, and didn't it resonate? I expected to hear the Law & Order "CHUNK CHUNG" sound when he was done. And if anything, I'm the opposite. I drink the same way that, to a far lesser extent, I diet. I know I shouldn't do something, I do it anyway, I feel like shit about it and do it again. Repeat ad nauseam. The whole time I'm doing it I'm beating myself up for it. I know it's my fault and I hate myself for not being able to better control it.

On the other hand, some of the things he said were real home runs. Like how addicts try to solve peripherally, AROUND the addiction. As soon as he said that I thought, "Kind of like how I--"

"For example, you might move to a different city or change jobs". And DING DING DING! Score one for Bob, who just completed my thought for me. Sure, my move fifteen months ago was for school, but I also thought that by quitting my semi-cush job and comfortable living situation and moving to a city where I would be poor and friendless and constantly crunched for time, I'd have no choice but to be sober. Thinking about this point, I had no trouble coming up with dozens of examples in my own life. It's so fucking obvious that I can't believe it never occurred to me before.

But is it like reading a horoscope, where you're like "Oh my god, that is SO ME", and then you read the horoscopes for all the other signs, and a bunch of them apply to you just the same? And aren't you a little bummed when that happens? Like, now that you could be a virgo and/or a capricorn, neither seems all that special?

I'm still getting this party started, so I guess I'll have a more educated opinion further down the road. I can't help but lose faith in somebody's opinion though, when they're looking me in the eyes and telling me that something I just don't believe is correct is for certain.

There's this, though: several times tonight somebody would object to something he said, or just give a really reasonable sounding reason why they didn't think it applied to them. Then, in three questions or less, he'd change their mind. And it wasn't in a car-dealer-y way, mindfuckey way, either. It really seemed to make sense.

But then again, I've never been to a psychic because I know that, by week's end, I'd be forking over my rent money to talk to dead relatives I didn't even know I had. I'm like that.

I have to be honest, I never finished "Revolution from Within"

Rehab: Day 2
Bored: Nine days

Well... huh. Tonight may have actually been a little useful.

First thing: After being built up to be something of a god, but not like a sexy Greek god, more like Old Testament god (all wrath-y and imposing), I met the guy who'll lead the meetings for the next month. He was simply on vacation Monday, and if today was any indication it was probably a snowbird jaunt to Palm Springs or a crisp off-season weekend in Provincetown because dude is GAY GAY GAY.

I was a little worried at first, because although my finely tuned internal homosexual detection device* definitely picked up what he was putting down, whether or not he was an angry closet gay or a free-to-be-me gay was still up in the air. Having been supervised in the past by the former, it's bad, unless you're willing to shelve that part of your life and join them in the closet during any time that you spend with them. Old closeted gay people HATE young gay people, as evidenced by the myriad virulently anti-'mo public figures busted getting nasty as they wanna be with dudes in the past few months.

This matters a lot here, because obviously I'm going to be doing a lot of talking about myself in the next year, and at some point or another it's going to come up, and nobody wants to hear about my 45 year old girlfriend John. Especially if I happen to be wearing the same argyle print Michael Kors oxford shirt that I'm wearing today.

Let's call our leader "Bob". Bob is waxy and misshapen, as though Madam Tussaud had once brought him to life in the form of Mike Ditka, but then somebody left him out in a tropical rain. Bob is super commanding, which is impressive with this motley crew. I think they respect and fear him a little, and I get the feeling it's not just because they might go to back to jail if he doesn't approve of them. Interesting.

Bob meets me, and I introduce myself to the group for the second time. DUI, blackouts in the past year? I don't know, maybe three or four (LIE!). Drinking since I was fifteen but with great zest and fervor since about 22 or so. And yes, my first name is D but I go by B. "Why do you people have to make everything so fucking confusing?". I think he's kidding, but his delivery is so dry it's impossible to know for sure.

More talk of chemical dependency being a disease, which I don't really understand and I'm not sure I really buy. Someone asks "So, how do I break that down for people, when I tell them it's a disease and they say, no, you're an addict?" Bob makes fun of this guy for awhile, apparently his MO, before he finally realizes it's a serious question and starts to answer. Why didn't he think it was a serious question in the first place? I'm confused.

He writes a quote on the board:

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.
-- Gloria Steinem

"B, would you read that for us please?" I do. "And what do you think that means?" God, the woman who did your job Monday totally did NOT make us participate this much.

"Uh... well, I think it's kind of applicable here in that, like, you know, you really have to like challenge your perception of what you think addiction is. I mean, when you come here. I mean, like you really have to break down what you thought you knew and start to rebuild your... uh.. like when you come here you have no idea what's going on. I still have no idea what's going on".

This is the stupidest thing I have ever said in my life. I'm suddenly feeling a lot of empathy towards the contestants on America's Next Top Model. The last bit kind of gets a laugh, but who knows if it was good comic timing or embarrassed giggles.

"What do you think it means in its original context?"

"Thaaaat... we have to unlearn [Ugh! More Harley's Hippies talk. I'm totally going to sound like Dr. Mosupye, my angry black lesbian communist South African women's studies prof before I get out of this place] our ideas of women's role in society, and that it's a challenge for both men and women? And that what we kind of have to disregard what we know because it will... like.. pollute anything we try to learn on top of it?".

"And why do you say that?"

"Because it's coming from Gloria Steinem, and she was a big feminist?". I seem to have scored correctly, or I have also been detected by his own finely tuned internal homosexual detection device, because he seems pleased. Why we are talking about this outdated, SO nine waves-ago feminist in this setting is beyond me.

"Does anybody else know who Gloria Steinem is?", and because they do not, or because they are smarter than me, there is only the sound of crickets chirping in the distance. To horny girl: "Do you know who she is?" She does not. To the cute black girl: "You?" No. They are then ordered to write a one page essay on Gloria Steinem and turn it in on Friday. The mercury has exploded the top of my douche-o-meter and is traveling at lightning speed towards the heavens. If I was more strategic I would have said I thought Gloria Steinem was Dixie Carter's character from "Designing Women".

There's chatter about men and woman and whores vs. bachelors and just when I feel trapped in an episode of Sex and the City, horny girl says "Most of my guy friends say I'm more like a guy than a girl". Of course. The retorts to this all wash over me, and then I let them fall away. I think it would have been better if the lights had gone out and a single spotlight shined on Bob as a boa fell to his shoulders from the ceiling when he says the following: "Honey, I'm more woman than you'll ever be!". But that alone was pretty good. Ty Pennington puts his head in his hands and says "Make it stop". Everybody laughs, and I feel much relief.

Well none of this sounds very useful, does it? For the next hour we discussed withdrawal, stress management, yadda yadda, and I was surprised but also a little relieved to identify with so much of the material. Kind of like when you find out what that weird growth on your toe is. Yes, it sucks to have toe cancer, but at least now you know what it is and you can deal with it. I don't really have toe cancer.

I really intended this entry to be lots of navel gazing about the last half of the class and what I learned, but Project Runway is about to start.

Abruptly yours...


*You know how some girls feel about "panties", how it's kind of like how people who were fat kids feel about "husky"? That's how I feel about "gaydar". There's a dumb story here. Ask me about the time the closeted gay president of my high school student council killed that word dead to me by employing a stupid reference to it during morning address over the PA system.

The Film

Presumably the people in charge here went to school for whatever it is they are doing, but I'm still in awe of how inappropriate tonight's movie selection seems. After a half hour of D.A.R.Espeak about drugs being bad and serving only to distance one from clear reality, a VHS tape is popped into a small TV and, miraculously, even the horny girl next to me stops talking about jail and her vagina, sets down the clipboard onto which she has been scratching something banal and probably misspelled, and pipes down.

The movie starts. It's about how the brain works and it's from 1986 or something. There's a great Boards of Canada-esque soundtrack complete with authentic warbling effect, since this VHS tape has been watched for two decades by hundreds of losers just like me. Your brain is mysterious and its mechanics are thrilling, but somehow all that is lost here. We're reminded a few minutes through that there will be a test on Wednesday. Okay. I'm trying hard to pay attention, but all I can think about is how the sound effect used to illustrate information being channeled by the temporal lobe to the parietal lobe is activating my verbal tourette tic, and I'm hoping nobody thinks I'm just being jerky and squeaky because I'm high on something.

Even the producers of this video seem to realize how lame it is so it's off to PBS's version of Trainspotting! Fuck some lobes, we are introduced to two native American women toasting psychedelic mushrooms over a flame. The camera lingers as they stuff their face and chew. Fade to a cheesy montage of psychedelic imagery: sepia toned clouds, lightning, a howling wolf morphing into a baby. Except this last one is '86 style morphing, reminding you that Michael Jackson's video for "Black or White" really was like, totally mind blowing at the time. Then, in the sky, a door appears. Our host, John Suzuki (I think?) opens it, and explains that what these ladies are doing is having an experience that only mushrooms and LSD can provide. It totally opens up your subconscious and can be approximated with physical duress but not replicated without the use of these substances. The guy to my right whispers "awesome".

Then we meet a Harvard educated painter who uses LSD to open up his mind to paint his masterpieces. If you grew up in a town that had a Harley's Hippy Hut or whatever, that sold incense and bongs and "Subvert the dominant paradigm" bumper stickers, then you have probably seen this guy's posters rolled up in the bargain bin next to the used Phish cassettes. The voiceover intro places a lot of emphasis on HAR-vard so that this guy has some cred. He interviews at length about the magic of LSD, and you've heard it all before from kids in your high school who your parents felt sorry for, but still wished you wouldn't hang out with. It's a parody of a burnout, talking about windows and doors in your mind, and his poor parents. I mean, Harvard ain't cheap.

And so, I guess the facilitators know what they're doing. And it's refreshing, I guess, that they're like "Hey, this is how it is". Nobody is here to be babied or brainwashed, and I suspect that if most of us were susceptible to that, we wouldn't have started dabbling with self medication in the first place. But man alive if this video doesn't make me want to try LSD again.

It ends, and the girl next to me says "I think I've seen that guy's work before". I imagine her at Rite Aid, stuffing Cover Girl cosmetics into her baby's diaper bag before taking a single bag of Fritos to the checkout counter.

Tripping balls guy asks, "they can't detect mushrooms in your pee, right? Or is that acid?". His eyes are as big as plates, and I give him silent kudos for asking the question I was afraid to ask. Alas, he gets no answer.

We get forms asking us "What did you learn? What would you have liked to see?", and not a minute later I'm the last one in the room. So douchey. I am totally going to get my ass kicked.

Introductions

Rehab: day one

Bored: seven days

"You seem awful happy to be here, but it won't last!", said the 16-year heroin veteran after I introduced myself and told them why I was joining them today. I was a little surprised that his good natured ribbing wasn't more clever, because in the lifetime it seemed to take to seat and organize this unseemly crew of junkies and drunks, he had cracked some pretty funny jokes. 16-year heroin veteran is much hotter than you would expect, given that he's been shooting up for about as long as The Simpsons have been on the air. He has very white teeth and, save for some incredibly fucked up tattoos, is a dead ringer for Ty Pennington. I mean, I don't think Ty Pennington is hot, but maybe you do. 

When uncomfortable, I have a habit of feigning extreme cheer. 

"Oh of course!" is what I said to the officer when he told me he was arresting me for DUI. 

A few minutes prior to this I was waiting in the lobby as people filed in off the street for the six o'clock meeting. When I sat down, the other four people in the room were sharing jokes about dicks and gangrene and how the technician should have to shake it off for you at the end since you're paying for the privilege of pissing in a cup for them. Then a technician emerged from behind a door and took one of them inside and I realized: they were not joking. 

And which one has dick gangrene? 

I get anxious really easily, which I'm surely going to learn is just one of the many reasons I love getting totally fucked up drunk. Sober, I'm your party's deadest weight. After three drinks, you love me. Everybody does. I'm the funniest between drinks two and five. After eight I'm still kind of a riot, but maybe getting on your nerves. Much more than that, though, and you're probably going to get a call from me at three in the morning where I don't make much sense and tell you things I meant to keep to myself. I've had some seriously loose lips the last few years. 

Here's a story from my childhood: James, Kenny, and I went to a Seahawks game at the Kingdome (RIP) with James' dad. I had to use the bathroom, so Mr. Kozij took me into the mens room where I came face to face with the most mortifying public urinal ever pissed in. I could almost physically feel the psychological damage happening, right there. As though the folds of my brain were being torn like soft paper and re-shaped into a bow, or a swan. The "urinal" was a massive, circular pool, approximately forty-seven acres in size. It was jam-packed, shoulder to shoulder, with guys holding their wangs and pissing at each other from across the way. It was a Kafkaesque parade of loose skin dreamed up by an evil gay mastermind with a degree in engineering from a university in a some bleak eastern European country. 

A space opened up in front of me and Mr. Kozij prodded me forward. "Your turn!"

I did not then and have not since been able to pee in front of another person. Unless I'm drunk, that is. In which case: need someone to pee on your shitty ex-boyfriend's car locks in the freezing cold? I'm your guy (not only am I fun after five double Makers and Cokes, but I totally have your back). 

And so the first thing I think of when the reality of the situation hits me is not avoiding wangrene, but that if I have to piss in front of that technician dude, this is going to be a very, very long year. I'm still not sure if I have to. I'm hoping pee tests are just for the people from drug court. 

I look like a real douche. I'm wearing khakis and a tucked in dress shirt and Coach loafers because I just got here from work. Everyone else is either thugged out, super trashy, or at best, very casual. I'm reading an article in Newsweek about the expansion of Google and I hate how I know I look but I can't take my eyes off the paper because I'm afraid if I do, somebody will punch me or mimic my effeminate, high-pitched voice, and I will cry. For a fleeting moment I allow myself to think "I don't belong here" before reminding myself that, in fact, it was only three months ago that I had doused in Febreeze and then flipped a mattress I had peed on after a night of very expressive karaoke and multiple drunk dials. 

"Hey new guy", says a gum-smacking girl in the corner. "Are you here for drug court or DUI?"

I say "DUI!", and a woman from somewhere down the hall calls us into a room.

-------------------

This thing must work, because nobody here seems drunk or high, except for the guy two seats away from me who looks like he is TOTALLY TRIPPING BALLS, right now, here, as I live and breathe. He scratches at a scraggly face and his eyes are an indeterminate color. The girl between us has terrible acne scars and wears inexpensive makeup. She says to nobody in particular, or maybe someone I didn't see, that she's been so horny lately. The contract I just signed says a condition of all of this is that you must express yourself freely. Maybe she's just getting into the spirit of things, but the meeting hasn't even started. Tripping balls guy tugs at his coat. 

Wrench! The guy who normally runs this thing isn't here today, so his supervisor is stepping in. But then she has to go take care of something so a counselor is going to start the meeting. There's some confusion. I have no idea what's going on. I'm looking around at people who I think I can identify with and I'm copying how they're sitting and folding their arms and I'm praying it isn't too obvious. 

Two people do their introductions before me. A cute black girl who looks too young to be here says this is her fifth meeting, she's here for drug court. The host asks if she's taken her TB test yet (?). Then she asks if she's "opted in" to "a group" yet. I'm thinking this means "are you going to narcotics anonymous?", but I don't know for sure until later when this is coupled with talk of a "sponsor". I don't know half the shit anybody is saying, by the way, and I'm looking forward to being able to speak this language later so that I can participate more. She's basically like "Fuck narcotics anonymous" and the instructor moves on to the guy next to me. "TB test?" Again, WTF? "Opted in? How often? Good for you! Next!". It's me. 

My name's B and I'm here because of a DUI. "Is this your first?" It sure is! "Next!" Huh?

There are three other DUIsters here and we all get the same speedy service. I'm still trying to figure out what this means, but some perspective was provided for me by the friend I spoke to when I got home, who reminded me of the scene in Half Baked where Dave Chappelle goes to NA and tells the group that he's there because he likes weed too much. Then Bob Saget tells the group all about how he's been sucking dick for crack, and Dave Chappelle feels like an idiot. You could look at this any number of ways, but since I'm paying thousands of dollars for this and I'm determined to get my money's worth, I'm going with "Dave Chappelle did, in fact, smoke too much weed". 

There's talk. It's a fucking mess. This is rehab? It's just the host asking about feelings and people sharing anecdotes and lots of cross-talk about jail and how drugs are bad. Amidst some pap about "doing it for yourself and nobody else", a schlumpy looking guy rather brilliantly says "I'm not doing this for my kids, I'm not doing this for my girlfriend, I'm not doing this because 'I just want mama to be proud of me'". Heh. Maybe it was the delivery, but it was pretty funny. Schlumpo and Ty Pennington seem to get along pretty well. They kind of seem like the cool kids, and I make a mental note to try to befriend them, because even in a situation created for the sole purpose of re-shaping my fucked up priorities, my priorities remain thoroughly fucked up. 

This banter goes on for awhile and I can't believe how useless it seems. I'm fantasizing about what it would be like to be at Promises with Lindsay Lohan, or any place where a sliding scale wasn't a part of the selection process. After a brief break, it is time for THE FILM. It's about brains, and I need to tell you about it but I'm exhausted. So, more on the conclusion to day one later. 

All of this sounds really cynical, but I promise I'm not. I drink too much and it caught up with me and I'm determined to do something about it. I've also been told that the bullshit circle-jerk that I participated in today is nothing like the normal meetings with the regular guy, and there will also be some intense one on one sessions, which sounds very sexy. I'll keep you posted. 

PS: Twelve years later I watched the Kingdome implode via webcast days after a job had relocated me to the east coast. I was 21 and away from home for the first time. It made me sad until I remembered that somewhere in there, the terrurinal was crumbling along with everything else. After that I was free to look forward to whatever was going to replace it.