Augusten Burroughs
Augusten Burroughs is an American writer who's perhaps best known for his memoir "Running With Scissors", which documents his strange, abusive childhood. In brief, Augusten's parents divorced when he was young, and his unstable mother gave him to her Massachusetts psychiatrist, Dr. Finch. Augusten lived with crazy people in the doctor's filthy home, never went to school, and became the obsession of a pedophile that lived in a barn behind the house. The book was adapted into a 2006 movie.
Augusten Burrough's first memoir, "Running With Scissors"
Movie poster from the film "Running With Scissors"
"Dry" picks up a decade or so after "Running With Scissors", when Burroughs is a successful twentysomething copywriter in New York City, pulling down a six-figure salary. Burroughs is a talented advertising man but his personal life is a mess. He can't handle responsibility, doesn't pay his bills until they go into collection, and (despite being well off) sometimes loses his phone service and utilities. Burroughs is also a serious drunk who's frequently late to work, and often shows up stinking of alcohol.
After Burroughs misses an important meeting with a client his boss gives him an ultimatum: Go to rehab or get fired. Burroughs decides on rehab, and confides the news to his two closest friends: Jim - an undertaker and drinking buddy who's shocked at the news; and Pigface - a banker and former lover who's glad to hear it.
This kind of story can be grim but Burroughs tells his tale with humor.....and affection for the collection of misfits he meets along the way. 😎🧡
Burroughs (who's gay) chooses to go to rehab at the Pride Institute in Minnesota - a clinic that specializes in treating addiction in the LGBTQ community. Burroughs pictures the facility as resembling an Ian Schrager boutique hotel - with gourmet food, a pool, a spa, etc. Thus the author is brought up short when he arrives and sees a plain setting that assigns three patients to a room and serves fish cakes for lunch.
Therapy at the facility is a regimented affair, with constant meetings: group meetings, individual meetings, affirmation meetings, and so on - all directed at 'sharing.'
During Burroughs first group meeting he hears addicts talk about the harmful results of their drinking: car accidents; facial lacerations; and - worst of all - a paralyzed mother. One of Burroughs' roommates, a psychiatrist (who Burroughs thinks of as Dr. Valium), later admits that he came to the point of stealing ALL his patients' Valium, and replacing it with aspirin. Dr. Valium is now in danger of losing his medical license....and frets that all his expensive education will go to waste.
Burroughs thinks: "I'm DEFINITELY in the wrong place. This is for hard-core alcoholics; rock-bottom, ruined-their-lives alcoholics. I'm an advertising alcoholic, an eccentric mess."
It takes some time for Burroughs to admit he really DOES belong in rehab, that he's had unrelenting substance abuse problems since childhood.....when he started taking pills and drinking wine at Dr. Finch's house. The feeling is reinforced when Burroughs thinks about the current condition of his New York apartment, where "300 empty Dewar's bottles occupy all the floor space not already occupied by a bed or chair." Previously, when Burroughs used to drink beer, he once collected 1,452 beer bottles.
Burroughs does his obligatory 30 days in rehab, which - he makes clear - is the easy part of 'recovery.' The real work begins afterwards, when there's no built-in professional support system and the addict is once again exposed to all the old temptations. In Burroughs' case, this includes friends like Jim the undertaker, who parties hard every night.
Once he's out of rehab - and back in New York - Burroughs is supposed to go to group meetings AND individual meetings for six months, and to attend Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings EVERY SINGLE DAY for the rest of his life. Of course this is easier said than done, and Augusten immediately begins to make mistakes.
First Augusten develops a relationship with a fellow group therapy patient - a stunningly handsome South Carolinian named Foster - who has a great body, black hair, and blue eyes. Any romantic relationship directly after rehab is discouraged, and hooking up with a fellow addict is verboten - but Augusten can't help himself. On top of that, Augusten takes in a roommate he met at the Pride Institute - an intelligent, British music editor called Hayden, who's addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol. Thus, instead of avoiding addicts, Burroughs gets embedded with them.
Worse yet, Pighead - who's the (unacknowledged) love of Augusten's life - tests positive for the HIV virus. Burroughs starts to feel depressed and realizes he misses alcohol, the loss of which "is like dealing with a death in the family."
Burroughs also faces issues at work, where a hostile colleague, Rick, plots to get him drinking again; a 'Nazi-like' German client insists on an ill-advised advertising campaign; and his female work partner, Greer, is resentful of his (supposed) newfound insights about life.
The ensuing drama with Foster, Hayden, Rick, Greer, and the advertising firm - and most especially Pighead's illness - upend Augusten's life. After a prolonged 'hiccupping' illness, Pighead is in a hospital bed hooked up to machines, and Augusten helps to care for him, change his diapers, keep him company, and so on. This takes a great toll.
Burroughs struggles, falls, and eventually recovers, but it's a long hard slog that's well worth reading about....for the insights and the laughs (if you can believe it 🙂).
I should mention that Burroughs acknowledges 'fictionalizing' some elements of the story. He says: "This memoir is based on my experiences over a ten-year period. Names have been changed, characters combined, and events compressed. Certain episodes are imaginative re-creation, and those episodes are not intended to portray actual events." The fictionalization doesn't bother me because I think most memoirists do it to some extent.
After reading this book I think I understand addiction - and the stranglehold it gets on people - a little better. I'd highly recommend the memoir to anyone interested in the subject.
Rating: 4.5 stars
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