Last weekend the Kellers laid low at home and watched two movies about addicts, Clean and Rachel Getting Married. Generally I’m not a fan of addiction and recovery themes, too much like real life, I guess. But I found these films to be engrossing. Both center on addicted women, played by Maggie Cheung and Anne Hathaway, who are very unsympathetic characters. Alienating all around them with their destructive and self possessed behavior, these human train wrecks seem to be destined to lose everything to their addiction, and not have anyone left to care. In Clean, Cheung’s character, Emily, is cleaning up after a stint in prison and is trying to reunite with her son, who is being cared for by the parents of her overdose victim husband. Hathaway’s Kym, is on a furlough from treatment to attend her sister’s wedding, and soon makes it obvious that she thinks everything is about her and about her problem. She turns her toast at the groom’s dinner into a twelve step amends, going on and on about how sorry she is for everything, without ever mentioning the bride and groom. That wouldn’t qualify as making amends at the meetings I went to.

It was the former behavior that bothered me the most. I’m a recovering alcoholic, or as my father who shared the malady called it, a dehorn. That must have been stockyards lingo. I’ve gone 24  years without a drink, if you don’t count the time this summer when I grabbed the wrong beer bottle off the counter at a family gathering. It wasn’t O’Doul’s. I’m not counting it. I try to stay pretty low key about it, I get uncomfortable when people call attention to it. I’ll cop to it if the situation calls for it, but I always hope the conversation goes elsewhere quickly. Continue reading Clean and Sober →