The guys on the ward, we were all young officer amputees, young tigers. Airborne, Rangers—hard-core, dedicated soldiers, and we had all been seriously wounded. We were all there together, keeping each other afloat. When one was down, the others would come over and pick him up. We all stuck together. I’m still in touch with some of those guys forty years later.
That’s the way my group is now. I know if I really get in trouble, if my head gets too far up my rear end, I can call one of those guys and talk to them and they will understand. It won’t be a foreign language to them. We’ve all been in basically the same place, and we’re all working hard to try to get to a better place. My clarity has come inch by inch, brick by brick, struggle by struggle, clawing my way back up the hill to a life of decency and dignity and meaning, where I can just enjoy the day. Man, if I can enjoy the day, that’s the biggest victory of all.
I talked to my daddy the other day. He’s ninety-four, and he’s drowning in grief after losing my mother after sixty-six years. Can you imagine trying to come back and recover at ninety-four? I know how tough it is at sixty-six. It’s a lot tougher than it was at twenty-five. But little by little, he’s doing better. There’s a healing even with him. That’s a miracle. He went to the most broken place in his whole life at ninety-four, and yet he’s recovering. That’s a miracle and a mystery; it’s an answer to prayer. I pray for that every day. I pray that I can help facilitate the pro cess. But ultimately it comes from another source. It comes from the belief that life’s worth fighting for, worth showing up for, worth living after all.
Elaine Stritch
The phrase “living legend” gets thrown around a lot in show business, but if it applies to anyone, it applies to Elaine Stritch. For more than sixty years, she’s been a star on Broadway and a scene-stealer in Hollywood, known for her quick wit, her bold singing style, and her great legs. But her brash public persona hid a stage fright so crippling that she literally couldn’t go onstage without a drink. Elaine talks about that—and a lot more—in her one- woman show, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty. In 2002 the show won just about every theater award there is, and when we talked, she was on her way to London for another round of performances there. For many years, she was an amazing friend to my mom. In fact, she reminds me of my mother at her best, and I wanted her in the book for that reason alone. But because of her age and her talent and her years in recovery, Elaine doesn’t take shit from anybody. She’s not a people- pleaser. Plus, she’s busy, and scheduling the interview wasn’t easy; for a long time I wasn’t sure I’d get it. In the end, I did—and it was great.
I
f somebody, anybody, ever happens to say to you, “Hello hello hello, oh my God, you haven’t changed a bit!”—if that ever happens to you, you are in big trouble. Change, folks, is good news, especially the
kind of change that hits you when you put down the sauce, when a Tanqueray martini, straight up, very dry, with two olives, is finally, at best, in your life a memory. Man, oh man, oh Manischewitz (sorry)—that is change.
In 1979, along with my alcoholism, I became an insulin-dependent diabetic, and I’m telling you if I never worked another day in my life at my chosen profession, I would be fully occupied from morning till night looking after myself, coping with diabetes. It is, believe me, the pits! Even with my various addictions, I happen to be a giant disciplinarian. How did that happen? So I got very good at controlling my blood sugar. A few months rolled by and I said to myself, “If I can control the diabetes, how ’bout I control the booze? Enough of this total abstinence nonsense— control. That is the operative word.”
So two drinks a day, on- or offstage, two drinks a day. Two, two, two, two drinks a day. It doesn’t work. Not when you want eleven. Not when you start shopping for wineglasses in the vase department at Bloomingdale’s. However—if you’ll pardon the pun—I gave it a shot—and it worked!
Until one night at a dinner party given on the St. Regis roof in memory of Jackie Gleason, out of the blue, Lucille Ball asked me to say a few words about Mr. Gleason. I said, “Sure, why not?” and then it hit me. “Oh my God, I’ve already had my two drinks for today. What the hell am I going to do?” I was so goddamned dependent on alcohol to enable me to do “my thing”—to enable me to do any thing.
So I had three drinks that day, and here is my Jackie Gleason story: During the rehearsals of a TV show I did with Jackie Gleason, he invited me to have dinner with him at Toots Shor’s. I was so excited! My God, I must have changed my clothes maybe eight, maybe nine or ten times. I finally made a decision. Black. All black. Black dress (Dior), black tights, black shoes, black hat, black bag, and, oh, a single strand of pearls. Very New York. I’ll be fine.
I hit the street, grabbed a cab, and I was off to Toots Shor’s. I made my entrance, and Jackie Gleason, holding court at the bar, took one look at me and proclaimed, with what seemed to be body-mike projection: “Who died, pal?”
Well, my Jackie Gleason story was a huge success so I had to celebrate, didn’t I? So I had four drinks that day, and then I had five drinks that day, and on and on and on, and so it always goes.
I got home that night and climbed into my four-poster bed. The next morning I found myself on the floor, my nightdress in disarray, the phone off the hook. I was in an advanced stage of a major diabetic hypoglycemic attack, and I needed sugar, in any way, shape, or form. I needed sugar.
All of a sudden, I’ll be damned if there wasn’t yet again God, so quickly. My doorman, trying to deliver a package to me marked urgent and getting no answer, used his passkey. He found me, grabbed a quart of orange juice out of the fridge in my bedroom, and I was back in business.
A moment of clarity—I think so! The party was over; it was time to call it a day.
After twenty-one years of sobriety come September 2008, I am beginning to get a pretty good sober look at myself. I like a lot of what I see and I don’t like a lot of what I see. But I am dealing, and rumor hath it, I am definitely changing for the good—one day at a time.
Oops, I blew it! I blew it! Okay, I am a recovering alcoholic and my name is Elaine Stritch.
Even though it’s not really related to recovery, I’m leaving in a story Elaine told me, about a couple of dates she had with my uncle. It’s just too good not to share.
Oh, by the way, Chris—I had two dates with your uncle Jack, did you know that? I was nineteen years old. The first date was my idea. I saw him at a cocktail party, as they say, across a crowded room. Some enchanted eve ning? You had better believe me. I noticed he was about to leave the party and, Chris, he was so adorable, you want to know what I did? (After two martinis, it wasn’t difficult.) I just up and asked him where he was going. “Just for a bite at the Carlyle up the street, a little Bobby Short and then home, I guess.”
“Is it okay if I come with you?”
And Jack Kennedy said, “Why in the world not? Fine with me.” The second date was a glorious eve ning at the Stork Club. We got back
to my apartment on Fifty-second Street and I invited your uncle Jack up to have a nightcap. “Elaine,” he said, “if going up to your apartment and having a nightcap means having scrambled eggs and listening to Glenn Miller records, then I have to say no.”
I was very young and very inexperienced, if you know what I mean, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. “Well,” I said, “I guess that
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is what I had in mind.” He kissed me good night, turned me over to the doorman, and, back in his limo, made a U-turn on East Fifty-second Street and drove off into the night. I got into my elevator and I remember saying to myself going up, “What a straight shooter. I’ll bet the house he is, definitely and without a doubt, going places!”
Dejuan Verrett
DJ has been sober three years after spending eigh teen years in federal prison. In the two years he’s been free, he has released the CD Outta Myself and is working on a book about his life entitled An Inside Job. DJ’s moment of clarity happe
ned while he was in solitary confinement and powerfully demonstrates that a psychic change can happen to anyone, anywhere.
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y understanding was that God had put me in prison, God had let me grow up in the projects, God had made sure I never knew my father, God let me get shot and get stabbed. Why
would He let that happen to me? And why would I want Him in my life?
But while I was in prison, I had a moment when I realized my understanding was wrong. God isn’t the cause of my problems; that’s my head and my will. God isn’t the one telling me that I’m worthless; that’s my head and my will. God is in my heart, and my heart has never led me to sell drugs. My heart has never led me to shoot people. As long as I let my heart lead me, I’m okay.
I grew up in Harbor City, California, and I went to prison when I was nineteen years old. What happened was, I gave three of my childhood friends a kilo of cocaine apiece and they got caught. They set me up with the feds. I came home and the feds right away kicked in my door and found a bunch of money. There was so much cash coming in, I’d just stack it up, stack it up, stack it up, stack it up. There was the money, but there were no drugs in my house. I’m thinking, “Hey, I’ll beat it. They’ll confiscate the money, but I’m a first-time, nonviolent offender. I’ll beat this.” It didn’t happen like that.
The prosecutor wanted me to give up all my connections and I said, “I don’t do that.” My friends are all going to testify against me. My blood brother is going to testify against me. We’d grown up together, and neither one of us had a real brother. One day we were watching an old John Wayne movie, and John Wayne and this Indian guy cut their fingers and mixed their blood together and said now they were blood brothers. That’s what we did, and he was testifying against me.
I’m still thinking I’ll beat this, or maybe get five years or something like that. I was so arrogant. This was a federal charge, United States v. Dejuan Verrett.
To make a long story short, I was sentenced to eighteen years in the Bureau of Prisons, and as of June 2008, I’ve been out two years.
Being in prison was like being out of prison. I had my young homies. I ran weed, I ran coke. I made wine out of oranges and potatoes and rice and shit like that. I’d make ten gallons and keep three for myself. I’d drink until I passed out, and my crew would take me back to my cell and watch me. After a couple of years, I got transferred to Oakdale, in Louisiana. I know I’m going to need my coke and my weed and my alcohol. I need to establish myself so I can do what I’ve been doing. I got some beef rib bones in the kitchen and I took them to the washer, put it on spin cycle, and sharpened the beef ribs. That’s what you do in prison, because bones won’t set off the metal detectors. So I gave these knives to one of my new young homies. He used one on somebody, poked him a few times, and he got caught. He told them I’d given him the knife.
Now me, I had priors of using the knife in prison, and I was a California gang member, so they give me 270 days in the hole, in a special housing unit, SHU—you say it like “shoe.” I’d been in Oakdale twelve days.
So I’m detoxing in the SHU. No alcohol, no drugs. Well, I’m asthmatic, so I could get Sudafed from the physician’s assistants. I took them all at once, just to try and keep my buzz going, and I overdosed and nearly died.
Now the SHU is an eight- by-ten room. There’s a bed with a plastic mattress maybe three inches thick. There’s a metal toilet- sink-mirror, all one piece, all stainless steel. The only thing you can wear is a T-shirt, boxers, and socks. They give you a roll of toilet paper and you can use that as a makeshift pillow.
After I overdosed, the corrections officer told me, “Verrett, you keep fucking up and they’ll four-point you—put you spread-eagle on a concrete slab and tie you down like that.” I was there for three weeks and I had nine months to do and I didn’t see how I could do it.
I woke up in the middle of the night. I have no drugs at all anymore and no alcohol, and I have to take a piss. I stood up, and it was like one step from my bunk to the toilet. I leaned forward to pee and my hand touched the cold mirror. I looked up, and all I could see was my eyes. Just my eyes. I stared into those eyes, and something happened right here, in my heart. It was like every cell in my body was waking up. When I looked in the mirror, I saw freedom.
I got some toilet paper and I blotted out the mirror so I could stand there and see just my eyes. Then I positioned myself in front of the sink with my cigarettes and I just talked to myself. I needed someone to talk to, I needed somebody to understand, and there was nobody else. I spilled my guts to that person in the mirror, and he just listened and listened and listened.
I tell this guy in the mirror everything I have ever done, all the things I’m sorry for doing. I tell him, “I don’t want to be like this. Why can’t I stop drinking? When I start drinking, shit goes wrong—why can’t I just stop? Why can’t I drink like regular people?” I just kept talking. I said, “What do I need to do? I cannot continue being like this.” And that’s what brought the liberation, and let me go on. I talked about my childhood, how much I hated growing up in the projects, growing up without a father, and I let everybody off the hook for that. I let my codefendants off the hook. I just let go of all this anger. It was weird, it was crazy. I finally told somebody all my secrets and my fears, and it felt so good. I felt at peace.
I lay down and went to sleep, and in my sleep, I started reading in my dreams. I am reading all this new information from this book called Encyclopedia Britannica. Now I didn’t know what Encyclopedia Britannica is, but I’m reading that stuff in my sleep. And then in my dream, I felt God say, “I am going to help you do this nine months. You will sail by yourself, but I am going to help you do this.”
The next morning they brought around the book cart and I said, “I want something to read. I don’t want any Jackie Collins, none of that garbage.” Then I looked down at the bottom of the cart and I said, “What are those books right there?” He said, “Those are the Encyclopedia Britannica, A to Z.” I said, “Can I have the first one?” and I started reading. I didn’t know what the hell an abacus was. It’s a counting machine. I am reading everything, about days of the week, how Thursday is named after Thor, this god with a hammer—Thor’s day. I read about the Gregorian calendar, the Aztec conquest, the continental crust, surface temperatures of the stars, manifest destiny. I read A to Z. The letter Z comes from the Greek letter zeta.
My nine months went by so fast.
When I got out of the SHU, I tried to hang on to that moment of clarity, but the thing is, you need a program to keep it going. I didn’t have a program. Things started going wrong, and one day my cellmate was brewing some wine and I said, “Let me have a cup.” He said, “You don’t drink anymore.” I said, “Man, fuck that.” I took a drink and I couldn’t stop. I drank for twelve more years until July second, 2005. I went to sleep the way I did most of the time. I was drunk, and my buddies put me in the bunk, and the room is spinning until I pass out. In the middle of the night I woke up, the same way I had twelve years before, needing relief. I got up to pee and I saw myself in the mirror again and I said, “Fuck, man, you ain’t accomplished anything.” On July third I woke up and my first thought was, “God, what do I need to do? Just tell me what to do.” It was coming from the heart.
I went outside and I saw these people with the pink box and I thought, “Doughnuts . . . I haven’t had a doughnut in fifteen years. I wonder if they have those twisted things, crullers.” So I follow the people with the pink box. I thought they were church people or something and I’d go sing a couple of Hallelujahs and they’d give me a doughnut.
They said, “This is a recovery meeting for alcoholics. Come on in. You want a doughnut?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll take a doughnut.” So I sat back and I listened to these stories of how hopeless and how unmanageable their lives were, how they had lost everything—kids, homes, jobs, money. This one man talked about living in a big beautiful house, a million-dollar house, and going from that to
sleeping in a field next to cows to stay warm, because a cow’s body temperature is 105 degrees. Listening to him, I realized it wasn’t about being imprisoned or not; it’s about losing a life because of the disease of addiction.
So I kept going to meetings, but it took me two months to stand up in that group in prison and say, “My name is Dejuan and I am an alcoholic.” They did not laugh at me. Now back in compound, when my homie boys called me an alcoholic, everybody would laugh, but in the rooms of recovery, they didn’t laugh, they embraced me, you see what I am saying.
I call getting out of prison “coming back to America” because it was like leaving one country and going to another one. The day I went home, I walked straight over to the phone booth outside the prison gate, and people from the program were right there waiting for me.
I was scared to death. I don’t know how to live. I sold drugs and I drank, that’s all I knew how to do. I used to run to go to meetings because I didn’t know what else to do. I’d wake up at six o’clock in the morning, catch the bus, run a half a mile, and get there early so I can help set the chairs up. And I learned, and I changed. I’m a totally different person than I was before July 3, 2005.
It was hard to find a job, and it was hard to escape my past. My friend in recovery told me two things. He said, “You used to be willing to go to any lengths to get the drugs and the alcohol, so you’ve got to be willing to go to any lengths to keep your recovery.” And he told me, “Your past is going to be your greatest asset, if you choose to make it that way. Go out there, get in the action, and do what you need to pay your bills. Every day it’ll get a little better.” And it has.
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