Intervention

I finally saw an episode of INTERVENTION on A&E. Gripping stuff. It's an hour-long show. In this one they covered Tommy and Alyson, each of whom is under the impression they are being featured in a documentary on addiction.

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Alyson is a mess, ingesting basically everything she can get her hands on: marijuana, crack, Clonipin, morphine, and she mentions having been on heroine. In fact, she steals morphine from her dying father, even with a camera man shooting over her shoulder.

She's clearly smart, and as her father recalls the achievements of her youth (three time White House intern, various scholastic medals), one gets the quick impression that she was an overachiever, perhaps having been pressured to perform thusly back then. And though her venomous arguments with her sister are clearly fueled by the drugs, I got the impression from her comments about the sister's "fake" friends and life that perhaps she's rejecting the materialistic, achievement-driven mindset of her own past.

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Tommy is a cocaine addict. Though we never see footage of him using, I'd gather from his nostril tending and sniffles it's the powdered kind, not crack. He's previously been a financial bigwig, and he's lost it all to drugs.

Thing is, he's got chiseled SoCal looks and hubris. Even as he opens up to even-more-chiseled best friend Ken (of course that's his name) he still sounds a bit incredulous when he says, "The drug dealer took my furniture!"

He's been sleeping by the pool on the roof of a condo for four months, arising to shower in the pool house each morning. For breakfast he visits the complimentary buffet at a posh hotel, where he blends in with all the other perfect looking people.

But all he really has are his bicycle and a storage space holding an ever-diminishing array of personal items.

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Tommy, new at being homeless, asks one of his brethren how much he can get for recycling aluminum cans.

"Thirty-eight cents."

Tommy sounds surprised. "Each??"

No, that'd be a pound.

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Their respective families and friends hire interventionists. This person spends a couple days coaching everyone on how to be firm, and how to tell the addict that something is going to change: Either you pack this instant to leave for rehab, or you are excommunicated.

Tommy, still somehow the can-do man, agrees after what appear in the edit as just a few worry-filled minutes.

Alyson, the confrontational one, surprisingly agrees to go as well, though she ingests massive amounts of pills before departing.

Want to know what enabling is? Watch the footage of Alyson's father giving her morphine (!) tablets "for the plane."

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So how'd they do?

200 days later, Tommy is still clean, looking not nearly so gaunt. He's got a sparkle in his eye and a more even demeanor. He's working as some sort of counselor for at-risk youth.

Alyson, about 300 days later, is also clean, working for the rehab center in fact. She's well-respected there, looks much better, and wants to return to school and get a psych degree.

I COULD HAVE LEPT OFF THE COUCH!

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In the liner notes for the Rocky soundtrack, Sylvester Stallone talks about hearing Bill Conti's compositions for his film the first time. "I was cheering!" he said.

And that's how I felt.

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Getting sober is not just about getting the substance out of your body though. Addiction is also a psychological byproduct of something else that needs to be addressed. It's one thing to stop using, but it's another altogether to get a grip on what drove you to use in the first place.

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On August 17 it will have been 10 years since my last drink.

I am not three nights removed from my most recent drinking dream. I still have them regularly. They're almost all the same: I just nonchalantly pick up a beer, and only after getting well into to I remember that I'm not supposed to be doing that.

I wake up reeling from this emotional impact, this feeling of failure.

I'm not writing this to compare myself to Tommy and Alyson, or to get into labels. I'll spare us all the blathering specifically related to what I've done, both known and unknown to those around me.

But the reason I'm sober is because of what I was afraid I would become, period.

And I'm still afraid.

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THEBOY and I leave tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. We'll crash in Corsicana, then hit the road Thursday for Angleton and Matagorda. I plan to take it just as easy as I can in the presence of one very excitable four-year-old.

I'll be MIA for a while. Everyone have a good week. Follow your bliss.

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(How's THAT, Whit?)