(Mid March).....Dear Book Cover,
I love you and I'm sorry it had to end this way. Remember when we first met? Remember how I tried to overlook you again and again but finally I broke down and pulled you off the shelf and you asked me to touch you, so I did. I spread my fingers and placed my palm flat across you. And then remember how I used my fingers to push up the palm and drug just my finger tips from the top to the bottom? and of course, the inevitable - the quick pull to the cheeck. The glances from side to side to make sure no one in the bookstore was looking and then, the eyes-closed-full-taking-in of your smooth matteness. Those were good times, I wont deny it - but it's over now.

Dear inside of book,
lets not kid ourselves, it was only a physical attraction and in the end that is never enough.

*I found my brothers real life drug rehab stories to be more compelling (sarah, remember the kid that tried to prove his "recovery" by barking like a dog?)

*the was OK, whatever but I kept getting irritated with Burroughs for over explaining things. i.e. "He's a sex addict, I remember. And suddently, he ceases being a person and takes on the appearance of an anonymous roadside restroom stall." here enters one of the many overstatements that irritated the hell out of me, "The kind used by passing truckers for quick sex with people like Kavi."
Well no shit? was Burroughs afraid if he didnt' tell us what "kind" of stall it was, we might think it was a goat stall (the kind used to house goats)?
After three "no shits"! in a 2 page span - I gave up on the book.

(beginning March).... cool. i wanna be an alcoholic too!

I've always been familiar with Augusten Burroughs, but this was my first time reading any of his books. I LOVED it. Extremely messy, realistic, and heartfelt. Raced through it and finished over the course of a weekend.

We all know or have met someone like this. Snarky, expensive suits, gets by on his wits, drinks way too much and somehow manages to pull it off, or so he thinks. He's an advertising executive living in Manhattan, and his social life all revolves around drinking and recreational drugs, occasionally cruising gay bars, and hanging out with a few friends. At some point it spins out of control and he is given an ultimatum by his company to enter rehab. Like other things in his life until that point, he is delusional about what the experience entails but toughs it out for 30 days before returning to Manhattan, his job at the ad agency, and the same environment that enveloped him previously. This narrative is his memoir of that journey. He's a good writer, and this is an unvarnished view of his experiences. He's not an easily likeable character, but it was a worthy read. 3.75 rounded up for the writing.

Apparently, I am drawn to books written by gay men. I've never read any of Burroughs' work before, but own a copy of "Running with Scissors" that looked good from the dust jacket summary. This one makes me laugh and question whether I, too, might be an alcoholic since I've justified my drinking with many of the same excuses: "That person criticizing me never has any fun," "What else am I supposed to do in my 20's?" and my favorite, "I hate people who don't drink." For the record, I am NOT an alcoholic. But if my boss sent me to rehab for 30 days I would be like, "Cool, 30 days paid vacation? Thanks!"

P.S. Now that I've finished I can comment more about the whole book. First off, 30 days of rehab no longer sounds like fun. It sounds like an extended version of a church lock-in I attended in high school that was full of awful self-esteem boosting exercises. Everyone talks about their feelings all day. No wonder they all wanted to drink more than anything in the world.

It was heartbreaking and funny, although I suppose the progression of the author's alcoholism from denial to acceptance to sobriety to relapse and back again was exactly the formula I expected. Imagine how bad the reviews would have been if he went to rehab and came out still thinking it was a load of garbage that did not teach him anything?

I suppose it was inspiring if you need help warding off the drink, but I'm not going there. I love the drink. I will say I could relate to the author's addiction to Foster, the hot crack addict. And I cried twice while listening to passages about Pighead, the author's best friend with HIV.

Continuing the memoir trilogy, Augusten Burroughs takes the reader through his struggles with addiction as a young man. Living in New York City, Burroughs is busy with an advertising firm, making six-figures, and having little to rein him in. He recounts how his drinking got in the way of his job, where he would turn up randomly reeking of alcohol. After embarrassing himself and the firm on numerous occasions, Burroughs is offered a choice; go into rehabilitation or lose the job. Struggling to come to terms with his drinking, Burroughs choose rehab, though stands firm that he does not need it. He departs for a facility in Minnesota, where he encounters a number of other addicts as various points in their sobriety journey. In the early stages, Burroughs feels that he can overcome his drinking by choice, the "if I want it, I will do it" attitude. He pushes back against the services offered and program presented, finding them silly and somewhat overbearing. However, he has an epiphany while in treatment and as his thirty days come to an end, he develops a new-found respect for sobriety and its fragility. The true test transpires when he's released, sent back to New York City armed with a small dose of program and the requirement to attend an outpatient facility for six months. Though not mandatory, Alcoholics Anonymous is also recommended, a lifelong support that could only help him stabilise in the outside world. As the memoir continues, Burroughs explores life back in New York, a special someone he meets in his outpatient group, and a lingering connection from his rehab days that tries not only to vie for his attention, but to keep him from falling off the deep end. Highly humerous throughout with strong passages of heartfelt angst, Burroughs serves up a stellar second volume to his memoirs as he forces the reader to think and feel in ways they may not have thought possible.

With a better understanding of both his writing style and approach to the memoir mechanism, Burroughs' second instalment had me captivated from the outset. His use of concrete examples in the narrative combined with flashbacks offers the reader a wonderful combination of fresh material and poignant events that shape the man he became. Burroughs presents a close to seamless story of his struggles and the depths to which he sunk before pulling himself out, only to come crashing back to earth in a moment of weakness. He does offer extensive thanks to those who played a role in his recovery, but does not let the battle facing him go without crediting his own willpower. That he slipped up in numerous ways is not lost on the attentive reader, but this goes more to present Burroughs as a fallible man, rather than portraying an individual who can rise above the fray. Shocking in its honesty and clear in the pathway on which this journey developed, Burroughs provides the reader with insight and hope for a man who came close to losing it all.

Again, a special thank you to Rae Eddy, who recommended the Augusten Burroughs memoirs. She has been a great help as I realise my need to deal with some of the blurry portions of my past to develop stronger and more solid bonds to the present, as I peer into what the future has in store.

Kudos, Mr. Burroughs for this wonderfully raw piece of work. I am curious to see how you tie things off in the final volume of this entertaining memoir.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

Sequel to Running with Scissors in which Mr Burroughs despite no formal education and the most screwed up childhood manages to obtain a high powered advertising job and lives in Manhattan. He's now an alcoholic and Dry tells the story of his struggle with this, going to rehab, AA meetings, relapsing etc. Reading this though I could only think what a self absorbed horrible wanker. And he details everything - not sure how ethical that is, what does the second A in AA stand for afterall? He's nasty about his fellow addicts and after about 100 pages I just hated the guy and was willing him to mess up and start drinking again.

A heartbreaker of a book, both horrifying, and strangely ... unputdownable.

I enjoyed it but I finished it over two weeks ago and haven't thought about it since (until I saw I hadn't reviewed yet). Eh?

Ever wonder why John Elder Robison (Look me in the Eye) snapped out of his Asperger's as a young adult? Simple.

Booze.

It ran in the family: in all its other members.

It was like ice water on his childishness.

John's half-brother Augusten wrote this book about those old days. Now you know why the name of that sixties song is Days of Wine and Roses...

Cause all Augusten saw (for it ran in the family) were the Roses in the drink, leading him ever on and on...

Until he hit Rock Bottom.

And became Dry by choice.

Alcohol's hook is the Roses. But life's not all fun 'n games.
***

My friend Larry (Proud Father-Confessor of various Friends of Bill W) was defiantly Dry (at least I, not being one of those AA Friends, never heard otherwise):

To the extent that he had lost the unforced joie de vivre of his inner child. His tough coming of age had spawned inner fury.

Enter his green new boss: me. I had 'saved' my inner child at my own violent coming of age: So it now ran roughshod over my life, wreaking rack and ruin: as half a bipolar persona. My dark side I suppressed.

So we were immediately at loggerheads. You see, we were each other's Jungian Shadows: each was the self the other publicly suppressed. At great cost, I might add.

The result? We resolutely forced ourselves to live in our daylight selves.

And while I became more conflicted, strangling my dark side, Larry became more stridently raunchy and belligerent. He reminded me of McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest.

When we parted at retirement, we were still uneasy buddies, though.
***

Three years ago Larry called me again. He was dying of mouth cancer (he was a lifetime smoker). But there was a different, more human timbre in his voice. It was a sense of peace.

Small wonder, really: he had performed a lifetime of service for Bill W.

He was an eminence grise for so many engineers who had needed his help at work.

He was a lifetime lover of his dear wife and provider for his two kids.

He was a beautiful guy.

And now - at last - his inner child was calling him Home.
***

Yes, and Augusten Burroughs went Dry too.

And I too went dry - around 2010, though I missed my two daily shots of bourbon.

You see, those two shots had become a quart.

So by losing we Won.

My thanks to Larry, too.

You know, this memoir is to Die For, it's so good.

And so sadly hilarious and so Downright Brave.

And so Unabashedly, Deucedly Human.

Like my friend Larry at the end.

And like me.

And, maybe my positivity had helped.

For that day I told him I was dry, too.

And he had stayed Dry and loved that freedom.

At LAST we had connected. It was priceless.

*****

FIVE HUGE STARS, friends (Count 'em)!

It's so good, and you'll love it.

I am a memoir junkie. I thought this one was raw, funny, and really great.

I was immediately smitten with Augusten's playfully sardonic story telling.

Even when he is being a horrible person, in thought or deed, I am still charmed by his wry self awareness.

His roller coaster of emotional reactions to recovery was captivating to me. The supporting cast of his life is well drawn. Augusten's talent as an ad man serves him quite well as an author.

I doubt I would have picked this up if not for book club. Another win for compulsory reading assignments!

Augusten Burroughs did the impossible by making alcoholism (and his struggles with it) both interesting and funny.