Aa history Lovers 2004 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page

At the time of his death, Mr. Selby, a high school dropout, taught a gradua=

te

writing class at the University of Southern California. His son Bill Selby =

said

he was also working on a novel and a screenplay.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

________________________

World on the fringes of writer Selby

Hubert Selby Jr, who has died aged 75, has been described as one of

America's most influential writers.

Selby has been compared to William Burroughs and Joseph Heller for his

uncompromising prose and the scale of his impact as a US author.

He will probably be best remembered for his debut novel, Last Exit To

Brooklyn, a story of urban brutality set in a wasteland inhabited by charac=

ters

existing on the fringes of society.

It caused a storm on its publication in 1964 for its stark language and ble=

ak

storyline of prostitutes and gang members.

At a time when US society was regarded as the epitome of wholesome family

life, the book was notable for its daring depiction of a previously hidden =

underclass consisting of thieves, drug addicts and misfits.

Using material drawn from his experiences growing up in the New York

borough, the book became a cult classic but split the critics.

Allen Ginsberg, the New York beat poet, said it would "explode like a rusty=

hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years=

".

A review in The Times stated: "This is a brutal book - shocking, exhausting=

,

depressing"; yet the New York Times called it "an extraordinary

achievement... with a vision of hell so stern that it cannot be chucked or =

raged

aside".

In 1989 it was turned into a film by Uli Edel, starring Jennifer Jason Leig=

h and

Stephen Lang, set against a backdrop of violence and corruption in 1950s

Brooklyn. Like the book, it became cult viewing.

Selby's other best-known work was Requiem For A Dream, a harrowing

account of heroin addiction informed by his own problems with substance

abuse: he had become addicted to morphine during treatment for

tuberculosis.

On its publication in 1978, the New York Times Book Review said it cemented=

Selby's place in the "front rank" of American novelists.

It, too, was made into a film, released in 2000, starring Ellen Burstyn and=

Jennifer Connelly. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, it portrayed the tragic

downward spiral of four once-ambitious individuals consumed by their

addictions.

Years before the plaudits afforded to Selby by new generations of film-goin=

g

fans, critics had been in thrall of his lesser-known second novel, The Room=

,

published in 1971.

It received what Selby called "the greatest reviews I've ever read in my li=

fe",

then promptly vanished leaving barely a trace of its existence.

Typically dark and claustrophobic, it centred on a petty criminal locked in=

a

remand cell harbouring feelings of impotence, hatred and rage, and

fantasising about revenge.

Selby's foray into literature began as a teenager when he was sent home fro=

m

the merchant marines, critically ill with tuberculosis, during World War II=

.

Spending a year in hospital having survived radical surgery, he began writi=

ng

the work that would later develop in to Last Exit To Brooklyn.

A high school dropout, Selby was teaching a writing class at the University=

of

Southern California until his death.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3666117.stm

Published: 2004/04/28 11:44:29 GMT

© BBC MMIV

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++++Message 1781. . . . . . . . . . . . The New York Times Magazine, February 21, 1988

From: [e-mail] . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/1/2004 2:58:00 AM

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ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

More youths, blacks, women, homosexuals, Hispanics and alcoholics addicted to

other drugs now join A.A.

(Adapted from "Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous©" by Nan Robertson,

to be published by William Morrow in April 1988.)

By Nan Robertson

Only Bill Wilson could have imagined A.A. as it is today, because only Bill,

among the old-timers of Alcoholics Anonymous, had such grandiose, improbable

dreams. In the summer of 1935, there were only two A.A. members - Wilson, a

failed Wall Street stockbroker, and Dr. Bob Smith, a practicing surgeon -

sitting in the Smith kitchen in Akron, Ohio, through half the night,

chain-smoking and gulping coffee and trying to figure out how they could sober

up other drunks like themselves. The society they had founded attracted only

100 members over the next four years; it would not even have a name until

1939. Now there are more than a million and a half of us around the world -

members of the most successful, imitated, yet often misunderstood self-help

movement of the 20th century.

About half of all A.A.'s are in the United States, the rest are scattered

among 114 other countries. Many additional millions have passed through the

movement and been made whole by its program, but A.A. periodically counts only

those who are regularly attending meetings.

For those in the know, there are clues to A.A.'s presence everywhere: the sign

on a jeep's hood in a Mexican town that says the "Grupo Bill Wilson" will meet

that night; a West Virginia bumper sticker advising "Keep it Simple." The

Serenity Prayer, attributed to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and recited at

the end of A.A. meetings, appears framed on the wall in a South African living

room or embroidered on a pillow in a chic Madison Avenue shop.

A.A.'s meet in Pagopago, American Samoa, on Wednesday nights, in McMurdo

Sound, Antarctica, on Saturdays, and in Lilongwe, Malawi, on Mondays and

Friday, They find one another just to sit and chat between meetings in a

doughnut shop and coffee shop on the main street of Peterborough, N.H., a town

of 5,200 that has four A.A. groups. One of them is called Our Town in honor of

Thornton Wilder, who took Peterborough as the model for his nostalgic play

about American small-town life. The belfry of a Roman Catholic Church near

Covent Garden in London and a bank's board room in Marin County, Calif., are

reserved for A.A. meetings once each week. Some groups meet on ships, at sea

or port. To these exotic settings must be added the thousands of prosaic

basements and halls in churches, community centers and hospitals where most

A.A.'s inch their way back to a life of quality.

In the last decade or so, large numbers of Americans, mainly entertainers,

have gone public to say they are recovered alcoholics. Almost all said their

motivation, and their hope, was, by their example, to inspire still-drinking

alcoholics to recover. But the great mass of membership everywhere is composed

of more or less ordinary people. They are neither movie stars nor skid row

bums; the great drama of their lives has not been played out in the spotlight

or in squalid flophouses. These alcoholics have suffered, increasingly

isolated, in bars, in their own bedrooms, or in the living rooms of friends

who have become estranged by their drunken behavior. Their recovery has been

worked out in private.

Over the last 50 years, the substance of A.A. - its core literature, its

program of recovery and its ways of looking at life - has changed very little.

But in terms of the numbers and diversity of its members, A.A. today would be

unrecognizable to its pioneers. In the early years, A.A. members were almost

exclusively male, white, middle-class, middle-aged and of Western extraction.

They were men who had fallen very far, often from the top of their business

and professions.

The A.A. of 1988 is huge, increasingly international, multiethnic,

multiracial, cutting across social classes, less rigidly religious than it was

in the beginning, more accepting of gay people, and of women, who now form

one-third of the total North American membership and about half of the A.A.

membership in big cities. Increasingly, many turn to A.A. for help in earlier

stages of their disease.

A much more abrupt and spectacular trend is that young people have streamed

into A.A. in the last 10 years, most of them addicted to other drugs as well

as to alcohol. Dr. LeClair Bissell, the founding director of the Smithers

alcoholism center, in Manhattan, expresses the consensus of the alcoholism

research and treatment world when she says: "There are almost no 'pure'

alcoholics among young people anymore. They are hooked on booze and other

drugs, or only other drugs."

It is common now at A.A. meetings to hear a young speaker say, "My name is

Joe, and I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic."

The dually addicted anger some A.A. members. One with 20 tears of sobriety

says: "This fellowship was formed to help suffering alcoholics, and alcoholics

only. That's why it has been so successful - we don't monkey around with other

problems."

In a few communities, A.A. members have formed groups billed for those "over

30." The message is clear: No druggies wanted. This development infuriates

John T. Schwarzlose, executive director of the Betty Ford Center for substance

abusers in Rancho Mirage, Calif.: "A.A. is the epitome of tolerance,

flexibility and inclusiveness, but some drug addicts have told me about being

turned away from A.A. meetings in the Midwest and South when they say they

were just addicted to drugs, Now I tell them to say they are both alcoholics

and drug abusers." In the big cities and at A.A. headquarters, attitudes

toward the dually addicted are much more welcoming.

For a long time, Alcoholics Anonymous was believed to be a purely North

American phenomenon. It was thought that its themes of self-help and

voluntarism would not transfer to more relaxed cultures. A.A.'s Ecuador-born

coordinator for Hispanic groups voiced the early point of view among his Latin

friends: "A.A. is O.K. for gringos, but not for us. In Latin America... if a

man doesn't drink, he's not a macho." To his surprise, A.A. began to boom

among Hispanics in the 1970's. Mexico's membership of 250,000 is now second

only to that of the United States. Brazil, with 78,000 members, and Guatemala,

with 43,000, are next-highest in Latin America.

Until recently, A.A. had been unable to gain a toe-hold in the Soviet Union or

in Eastern Europe. The movement had been regarded there as possibly

threatening, because of its precepts of anonymity and confidentiality, its

religious overtones and the fact that it operates outside any government

control. Then last summer, the Soviet Union sent to the United States four

doctors specializing in addiction. They visited Alcoholism-treatment centers,

the Summer School of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University and numerous A.A.

meetings. When they returned home, they took back quantities of A.A. pamphlets

translated for them into Russian. Still, the only Eastern European nation to

embrace A.A. has been Poland. Its Government finally recognized what is called

the "psychotherapeutic" value of A.A.

In the United States, those long familiar with A.A. meetings notice that there

seem to be disproportionately high numbers from certain ethnic groups.

"Alcoholism goes with certain cultures, such as Celtic or the Scandinavian,

that approve of drinking, or at least are ambivalent about it," says Dr.

Bissell. "But in some environments or religions, people don't drink on

principle. These abstinent cultures in the United States include Baptists,

some other Southern Protestant sects and Mormons."

For a long time, there was a widely held belief that Jews did not become

alcoholics. The work of JACS - Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons

and Significant Others - is helping to dispel that myth. Jews are present in

large numbers, JACS says, at A.A. meetings in many large cities where there is

a significant Jewish population. But rarely do A.A. meetings take place in

synagogues or Jewish community centers.

Sheldon B., an alcoholism counselor in New York, told of how a few years ago

he approached his own rabbi with the idea of opening their temple to an A.A.

group. He though that Jewish members in any A.A. group might be more

comfortable about accepting help in a synagogue setting than in a church. The

rabbi informed him that there was no need: "There are no Jewish alcoholics."

When Sheldon B. said, "But I am an alcoholic," the rabbi thought for a moment

and them replied, "are you sure you know who your real father was?"

Although there are black A.A. groups and mixed racial groups in large Northern

cities, the number of blacks in A.A. does not appear to reflect the race's

proportion in the nation - 29 million, or 12 percent of the population.

"There is a great stigma in being black and being drunk, even recovered, a

black Philadelphia teacher declared at a meeting devoted to the subject. "I

made the mistake of telling my principal that I had a problem. I checked

myself into a treatment center. She used a hatchet on me."

As a black Milwaukee social worker explained: "The black community is afraid

that if blacks admit their alcoholics, it will reinforce the white stereotype

that they are shiftless...The black community likes to think that oppression

causes their alcoholism...Other oppressed minorities use the same argument.

"Who wouldn't drink?" they say. "Our lives are so goddamed awful. Oblivion is

the only way out of our pain."

Homosexuals are coming into A.A., and in sophisticated communities are

welcomed. Some recovered alcoholics have formed all-gay groups, just as there

are special groups for women, doctors, agnostics, lawyers, airline pilots and

others.

"Growing up in Alabama, I was taught to hate myself," one gay member told an

A.A. meeting. "I was a nigger sissy. In A.A., I learned that God loves us all.

My business in A.A. is to stay sober and help you if you want it."

A.A. surveys do not inquire whether members attend religious services or if

they believe in God. There are no questions about ethnic or racial origins,

sexual preference or whether alcoholism runs in the family. But a family

predisposition to alcoholism is reflected strikingly within A.A. Often,

speakers at meetings begin: "My name is Mary, and I am an alcoholic...and my

father [or mother] was an alcoholic."

Longtime A.A. members believe that it is hopeless to drag another into

sobriety if the alcoholic is determined not to be helped or refuses to believe

he is ill. Even so, the courts in some states are sending thousands of

offenders to A.A. meetings instead of to jail. But the A.A. program sometimes

catches on even with unwilling alcoholics.

There are many things outsiders believe A.A. to be that it is not. It is not a

temperance organization or Prohibition society. A.A. does not want to save the

world from gin. Nobody invites you to join A.A. You are a member if you say

you are, or if you walk into an A.A. meeting with the thought that you have a

drinking problem and you want to stop. There are no papers to sign, no pledges

to take, no obligations to speak up, no arms twisted. The attitude of members

toward those outside who drink moderately is, "I wish I could drink as you do,

but I can't."

A.A. is not a religious cult. Some members are agnostics or atheists. Many

choose to believe that their "higher power" is their A.A. group. Most members

prefer to call A.A.'s program "spiritual." Yet God is mentioned directly or

indirectly in five of the Twelve Steps, which A.A. uses to help heal

individuals, and this sometimes repels outsiders who might otherwise be

attracted. (Boiled down to six instantly understandable principles, the Twelve

Step program might read: We admitted we are licked and cannot get well on our

own. We get honest with ourselves. We talk it out with somebody else. We try

to make amends to people we have harmed. We pray to whatever greater Power we

think there is. We try to give of ourselves for our own sake and without stint

to other alcoholics with no thought of reward.)

A.A. does not work for everybody. But then, nothing does. About 60 per cent of

those coming to A.A. for the first time remain in A.A. after going to meetings

and assiduously "working the program" for months or even years. Usually, they

stay sober for good. But about 40 percent drop out. These statistics refute a

widely held notion that A.A. is always successful or an "instant fix." Even

so, its success rate is phenomenally high.

Freudian analysis and religious faith, for example, may be two great ways to

heal the human spirit, but they do not work on their own for alcoholics. The

vast majority of doctors, psychologists and members of the clergy who are

familiar with A.A. as well as almost all experts in alcoholism, make A.A.

their No. 1 choice for a long-term program of recovery. A.A. precepts are

built into the programs of every respected intensive alcoholism treatment

center in the country, including those of Hazelden in Minnesota, Smithers in

New York and the Betty Ford Center. John Schwarzlose of the Betty Ford Center

expresses a typical opinion. "Patients ask how important it is that they go to

A.A. after they're through here. I say, 'I can give you a guarantee. When you

leave here, if you don't go to A.A., you won't make it.'"

A.A. has no ties with political parties, foundations, charities or causes, nor

does it sponsor research into alcoholism.

And unlike most tax-exempt organizations, A.A., whose current annual budget is

$11.5 million, does no fund raising. Nor does A.A. accept money from

outsiders. The funds supporting headquarters services come mainly from A.A.'s

huge publishing empire, which distributes authorized literature to members.

Each group is self-supporting, passing a basket at every meeting to help pay

for coffee, snacks, literature and rent for the meeting space. Those present

often give a dollar. Others may just drop a coin in the basket. Some cannot

give anything.

No member may donate more that $1,000 a year to A.A. Nor may a member bequeath

more than $1,000, or leave property to A.A., which has never owned any real

estate.

"The reason we discourage gifts and bequests," says Dennis Manders, a

nonalcoholic who served for 35 years as the controller at A.A. headquarters,

"is that we don't ever want some person dropping a million bucks in the A.A.

hopper and saying, 'Now, I'm going to call the tune.'"

About half of the groups contribute nothing at all for headquarters services.

Many members feel that carrying the expenses of their "home group" is enough.

This kind of autonomy and decentralization typifies Alcoholics Anonymous.

The average A.A. member, according to surveys, attends four meetings a week.

After about five years of regular attendance, some A.A.'s go to fewer and

fewer meetings. They may stop altogether when they feel they are able to

function comfortably without alcohol. However, some speakers at meetings are

full of cautionary tales about how they drifted away from A.A. and drank

again, sometimes disastrously and for long, periods of time, before returning

to the fold.

The movement works in quiet and simple ways. Members usually give of

themselves without reservation; exchange telephone numbers with newcomers;

come to help at any hour when a fellow member is in crisis; are free with tips

on how to avoid that first drink. Most people in A.A. are flexible, tolerant

of eccentrics, suspicious of "rules" and "musts." The lack of ritual can be a

surprise to beginners. So is the absence of confrontation, finger-pointing,

blame-laying, angry debate and chronic whining.

The essence of A.A. can only be guessed at in big, showy gatherings, such as

its international conventions every five years. It is in the intimacy of the

neighborhood meetings that the truth, the flavor and the inkling of the

reasons for A.A.'s success can be grasped. The members may meet in groups as

small as 2 or 3, or as large as 200, but the usual attendance is somewhere

between a dozen and 40 people. In New York City, the most active single A.A.

spot anywhere, there is a choice of 1,826 listed meetings held by 724 groups

every week.

As A.A. grew and diversified, the stigma of alcoholism gradually faded. There

were many stages along A.A.'s road to respectability, beginning in the 1940's,

that gradually transformed the public's perception of the society of recovered

drunks from a butt of disbelief and even ridicule to that of an accepted and

admired organization. None was more significant than the action taken by the

American Medical Association. In 1956, the AMA's trustees and its House of

Delegates declared that alcoholism was a disease, thereby validating a central

belief of A.A., from its co-founders on, that it is a sickness, not a sin.

Now the Supreme Court of the United States is debating the legality of the

issue. Last Dec. 7, the court heard a challenge by two Vietnam War Veterans

against the Veterans Administration for excluding "primary alcoholism" (in

which drinking itself is the root disorder) from the list of illnesses and

disabilities that allow veterans more time to claim education benefits.

Extensions can be granted to veterans hindered by physical or mental problems

"not the result of their own willful misconduct." The justices are expected to

hand down an opinion before the Court's term ends in June.

The structure of A.A. is a little harder to grasp than the disease theory of

alcoholism. It is close to the truth to say that A.A. consists of a million

Indians and no chiefs. And that it is less an organization than an organism

that keeps splitting amoeba like, into ever more groups. If a member doesn't

like how things are run in his group, he can start another one with people he

finds more compatible. This has given rise to an A.A. saying: "All you need to

start a new group is two drunks, a coffee pot and some resentment."

There is a structure in Alcoholics Anonymous, but it would set any

conventional notion of how to run a business on its head. Basically, the local