The Van Nuys Court appointed several DUI programs and AA meetings for me to attend after being arrested and charged with drunk driving. The first-offender DUI classes were fine, even tolerable; the movies that we were forced to watch in the small dark rooms of suite 318 in the 1800 building, north of Hollywood Blvd, were actually very good. The Lost Weekend, in particular, was a classic. But the AA meetings were something all together different.
Stepping into my first court-appointed AA meeting was embarrassing. I’ve been to over a dozen before this; my first one was with my father when I was around the age of 14 --ironically, my dad had to go because of a DUI charge as well. But most of my times in AA were spent with my ex-girlfriend; her adoptive mom had caught her drinking and using speed and had consequently suggested that she either stop using and go to AA meetings regularly, get a sponsor and work the 12 steps, or she would have to leave the house. So she went and I accompanied her. All on my own free will, of course; however much that makes sense when you’re in the archetypal relationship that doesn’t exercise the idea of free will, where both sides argue non-stop about arguing non-stop. But that is something else entirely irrelevant, not for now.
I showed up four minutes late for my first AA meeting from trying to find parking on a Saturday night at 10 pm on Ventura Blvd, red-eyed from lack of sleep the night before and with a three-day old beard. I looked as if I belonged. It was the facial uniform for the men. The meeting secretary was already speaking, quickly beginning to ramble on about her promiscuity, her drinking and her meth and crack using. And then it stopped and everyone clapped. More speakers followed, the rambling was the normal part of things. The applause always followed. This being my first meeting in over a year, I felt that I could now see things in a more objective fresh angle. I was more open-minded too, almost eager, almost eager in hearing of courageous struggles with sobriety, of the details in fighting to stay sober and how everyone dealt with it. I’ve always been into inspiring stories of triumph over adversity. I’m a sucker for the cliché. But the speakers were anything but inspiring. Speaker after speaker used the same AA, self-help, self-congratulatory rhetoric. Plastic chips were given out to newcomers and 30-day and 60-day sober people. When they called upon all newcomers to go up and take a chip, I hesitated, feeling all eyes on me. Wait. Does this include me too? Should I go up? Do I have to? Should I let them know I’m only here because of the court?
Oh, no thank you, I’m not really supposed to be here. I mean, uh, the court.
I’m not an Alcoholic.
No, really.
I’m here because I was charged with a DUI.
I drink still, tons, really; like a fish; like a very thirsty fish.
But I said nothing and went up. Everyone applauded and I felt my face flushed red with instant embarrassment when the chip guy hugged me. I smiled out of a feeling of awkward obligation. I took my seat and counted the minutes for the end of the meeting. This was something I had no way to avoid so I forced myself to cope with it, to accept it. This was a place I didn’t want to be, but had to be. I was used to that kind of mindset.
The second meeting was just as awkward. I saw some familiar faces from my first meeting and made a conscious effort to avoid all eye contact.
In the third meeting I felt more at ease. I was no more than a few minutes late. I walked in at 6 pm on a Wednesday. The place was packed; every available seat had a pink NutraSweet packet on top, a symbolic gesture of marked territory. I found an available seat in the back row, right between a sugar packet and a bald tattooed guy with a goatee. The speaker was talking about how much AA has helped turn his life around, how he doesn’t rob anymore people in Hollywood but how he still doesn’t talk to his little brothers and how he really wished he could and how sad he is that his mother died angry at him for stealing her drugs. The next speakers came up and said that they all related. Everyone applauded everyone. It was a nice meeting with nice, well-mannered people who were still well-mannered and nice even after drinking and enduring the obligatory shit-tasting coffee. The coffee in AA meetings, I’ve concluded, is supposed to be shit awful; it’s an exercise of penance, spiritual self punishment, like the Catholics in the Philippines or some of the Muslims in the Middle East who mutilate themselves to show how strong their faith is.
The meeting was coming to an end; the chips were given out, a cake was presented to someone who has managed to stay sober a year. This was called the AA birthday cake. Everyone applauded the person that brought the cake: S----. Everyone was looking in the direction of the only person that wasn’t partaking in the applause: S----, who was smiling and waving his right hand in the air in acknowledgement. I looked over to where S---- was sitting. And then it hits me: I know him. I know S----.
I work at a porn shop in Van Nuys with a 50-plus porno movie arcade in the back. S---- is a frequent visitor at the store. He and I have made small talk and though we are not on a first-name basis, we appear friendly with each other inside the store. At my store we sell Amyl Nitrate (and a vast assortment of its less potent and more legal knock-offs: Isobutyl Nitrate, Isopentyl Nitrate, Alkyl Nitrate, Cyclohexyl Nitrate, Something-Something Nitrate, etc.) commonly referred to as “Video Head Cleaner” or “Poppers.” People use it as an inhalant, primarily in the gay scene, primarily during sex --hence the sex store connection. S---- is a frequent buyer of Video Head Cleaner.
So I sat there looking at the hairy rolls of fat at the back of S----’s neck, thinking about S---- and his Head Cleaner and if it was wrong of him to go into a porn shop and jack off in one of the movies booths inhaling head cleaner. Was this allowed in the AA sobriety promise? Was Video Head Cleaner considered and defined as a drug? AA only permits the usage of some low-grade drugs, I think. Well, maybe ‘low-grade’ isn’t the best word. Nicotine, Caffeine, and anything which is doctor prescribed (pain killers) is ok; maybe head cleaner is something allowed like that. Everyone needs a drug every now an then. It’s impossible to be fully sober with a Starbucks and Walgreens on every corner. We’re human. We need our brains all mashed up in order to survive. I don’t know. Really, there was no point in my wondering and questioning. I barely cared about this person or his loyalty to the program (it didn’t affect me, so what the fuck), but it was interesting to think about S---- and people like him and the definition of sobriety.
It was interesting to listen to all these people who got up at the podium and spoke about how hard their lives were and how much better their lives are now that they don’t drink. Lives were being saved. It was very strange. Almost eerie when I thought about it: that so many people allegedly share the same exact problem, that these meetings are world-wide. World-wide. Not just America. The world. There should be a point to what I’m typing in here but there isn’t. The court has required a 500-word essay from me on how the whole DUI experience has affected me. It’s forced, court-appointed and therefore completely valueless but I’m anxious to see where it’s going and maybe if there’s potential and with heavy and constant reprising I can salvage some of this and use it somewhere else more important.
I come out of this, the AA meetings and the DUI programs, questioning my drinking and coming up with this: I’m almost certain and completely sure, probably, that I’m not an alcoholic. I sit here interrogating myself, remembering all the times waking up in the morning trying to remember the happenings of the night before while covered in piss, trying to count all the blackouts, asking myself if I do indeed have complete control over my drinking; quickly, I get tired with the questioning and decide that I’ve got as much control over my life as was allotted for me to control. I drink, yes. I drink a lot and maybe more than you, but I’m 21 right now; I’ll probably never drink this much again in all my life, a pseudo-prediction not a promise.
I don’t drink and drive anymore. I’ve learned my lesson, but not through moral questioning, the trip to the city morgue, all the dead squashed babies, all the movies, the AA meetings, all the speakers and all the crap. I can’t afford to drink and drive. Period. It’s a costly risk and I avoid it at all times. I tell my friends not to do it. I let dumb drunk people sleep in my apartment if they’re too drunk to drive home. Once, while working at the porn shop, the 20-year-old janitor called in drunk asking me for a cab number because I had told him repeatedly that he should stop driving drunk, that he is a good kid but has bad luck and should think about his baby and his future, that it’s a complicated problem with a giant fine that he wont afford and --like me-- most likely will never recover from, that nothing is worth risking your job, your home, your paycheck, that it’s dumb and avoidable. He burped. I gave him the number and he said, “Thanks man.” It felt good knowing I might have possibly prevented something, even though I’m almost sure he didn’t call the cab.
There.
That’s pretty much my essay.
That’s what the court wants me to say, anyway.
