Truth in Nonfiction discussion

My prompt for our discussion today is going to be directed toward finding contextual evidence; one to two quotes will do justice, regarding the account of James’ time in rehabilitation. We have all read and learned about the extensiveness of James’ drug use. With that said, I would like your input in terms of the validity of the accounts of rehab, keeping in mind that he spent just six weeks in the facility before he was let out and to this day James never relapsed.

Keep in mind a few things:
James was an alcoholic for ten years, a crack addict for three years, he had a hole in his face, four front teeth knocked out, and on top of it he was in a perpetual downfall toward his inevitable death before entering the facility.

With a 17% success rate and the addiction for years on end it is hard to believe that six weeks can complete change a person whose life has revolved around drugs and alcohol. Do you think it is possible to make this town around? No answer is incorrect but please use evidence to support your claims.

I like that our James has kept the focus on the text, especially following our class discussion on Tuesday. Let's save any conversation, comments about the controversy--Oprah, Smoking Gun, Frey-- for class and allow ourselves to focus on this question as it relates to the text as James Frey wrote it.

It does seem like six weeks in rehab shouldn't do much. I've seen episodes of Intervention where the addicts stay in rehab for at least three months and continue in halfway houses. But James definitely had some outside help that the Twelve Steps probably wouldn't have told him. We already know that his new found friends and love interest have made a big impact, but James has done a bit of soul searching on his own while in his room and anywhere else he finds himself alone. First, when he starts to write down what he has done in his past he goes "As I write the wrongs of my early childhood, most of them make me laugh. They were stupid, the actions of a kid who didn't know any better or who didn't give a fuck if he did know better" (395). By writing down his past, he is slowly coming to terms with it. Also, I've noticed that when anything from the past is brought up around him, he laughs. This seems like this is his coping mechanism since he's had such a rough life and probably didn't get to laugh all that much. And he's right, most of his actions were made when he was very young and we all know when we were that age we wanted to do everything without consequences. But that is definitely not the case. A second quote I'd like to use is from the Tao that he has been reading, "If you want to shrink something, you must first expand it. If you want to get rid of something, you must allow it to flourish...Don't tell people the way, just show them the results" (370). This is a nice mirror to what James does in the bar at the end of the book. It is where he proves to his skeptical brother that he can handle himself regardless of denying AA. He willingly buys a drink only to dump it down the drain proves that even when faced with something that he has been hooked on his whole life, he found the power to say no on his own. And it is most likely from the lessons he learned from the environment around him, the people, the book, the stories and the relationships he made and rekindled. Not to mention looking back on his life and accepting what has happened to him. All of that combined is most likely what keeps him sober today.

After checking into the treatment facility, James began to use and develop his sober-self. For years he was functioning under the influence of alcohol and drugs and was completely lost in himself. Given his strong character who is in touch with his feelings and emotions, it does not surprise me that he has been able to successfully build and develop the sober person that he has never been until now. When James is talking to Joanne about rescuing Lilly, he explains the easy action of getting Lilly out of the building but how hard it was not to indulge in the drugs that lay before his eyes. The conversation goes, "Were you near it? Yeah. How close? Touched it and could have done it. Did you want to? Very badly. Why didn't you? I made the decision not to. Simple as that? Simple as that....I love Lilly more than I love getting fucked up....When I'm alone with it, be it the rock or the bottle, it will be more about me and whether I want to take care of myself or not" (385). I think it is important that James momentarily takes Lilly out of the picture and explains the choices he would be faced with when in the presence of drugs or alcohol. Also, the self-respect he has developed and the care he has for his body and wants to maintain is a factor that I think he will look to in order to stay sober. He has put his body through hell and knows that the process of detoxification is absolute misery and pain; something he probably doesn't want to experience again. I do think that both his strong, sober-self and the self-respect he has will carry him far.

Knowing about James's future and his ability to succeed in following his own path and creating his own rules, well just one rule as Frey writes, "Don't do it"is quite incredible and impressive (362). A turn around point is when James is able to think about running and know that running away is no longer an answer to his problems. Growth is seen when James answers his problems in a new way. Frey writes, "A morning full of life, a morning full of new beginnings. I could still run... I have run my entire life I am tired of running" (386). He knows right from wrong here. The right way might be hard but the wrong way is no longer and option. He has grown. I think it is important that James faces his fear and lets it all come to the surface and recognizes every little thing that he is scared of that is to come when he leaves "these boundaries" (416). He is able to let go of the past once he recognizes it as something that is real in his life and something holding him back. By keeping the past in his head and keeping his fear inside him, he is paralyzing himself. His freedom comes when he admits, to himself, that he has fear. His freedom comes when he writes out, for himself, all the wrong he has done. The past is not and cannot be apart of a successful future for James and by burning the past James is burning all that holds him back and all that has the capability of preventing a clean future (412-413).

Numbers have always scared me, their like little puzzle pieces but all you have is a side and a middle piece, never just quite getting together or making sense. Thats what the 17% success rate of staying clean is to me, just a numbers not making any real sense. I have to believe and do believe that it IS possible to make such a turn around, that it is possible to stay clean. I know Tina used this already, but Tina I agree with you on it. page 370, "If you want to shrink something, you must first expand it. If you want to get rid of something, you must allow it to flourish...Don't tell people the way, just show them the results." To me this is why the 17% success rate is just numbers, because I believe that the only way in the end to get better and be free is to allow yourself to be free. James must allow himself to heal, must allow himself to be overcome with the program in his own way, a way that works for him. Then in the end he must show it, he must live his way forever, and I believe he does that.

I think it was possible for James to make this turn around because originally he wasn’t listening to anything his mentors had to say in rehab, but eventually he incorporated some of his own views and their views to find a method that worked for him. I think James’ need to prove that he didn’t have to follow the twelve steps exactly to stay sober is one of the biggest reasons rehab was successful for him. When Lincoln tries to get James to read the bible James says, “I didn’t like it. Didn’t ring true for me…I don’t believe in it, so I’m not bound by its Rules. Whose Rules are you bound by? My own” (362). James thinks he has only been able to recover according to his own standards due to his arrogance at the beginning of the program, but he later learns to compromise with Joanne and Lincoln once they start listening to him too. When Lincoln talks to James about this he says, “You said last night you were going to prove me wrong. Yeah? Do it. Prove me wrong. I smile. I’m sure as hell gonna try. He stares at me. Do more than try. I stare back, nod” (363). This interaction shows how far they’ve come, and how they’ve both taken each other’s views into account to help each other do better in this program (Lincoln as a mentor and James as a patient). Once James starts making believers out of Lincoln and Joanne he is willing to do steps of the program he never thought he would, like talk to a priest. What James’ recovery has shown, and I do find validity in this, is that you don’t need to do all of the twelve steps, or at least follow them exactly (or in the right order) in order to recover. I believe you can follow them in a way that fits your own standards, and I think this is what ultimately helped James stay sober.

James's parents were never there for him. As Joanne revealed in one of the Frey's family meetings, this likely made James extremely angry, and he turned to drugs to try to distract him. After having a near-death experience James was brought outside of his reality and was allowed to step back and look at his life and where he was heading. Fortunately, James had reached a point in his life where he was mature enough to comprehend what he was doing to his body, and to understand that it would kill him if he could not control it; if this had happened five years earlier, he most likely would not have been able to stay sober. James was able to be honest with himself and the ones he loved and tell them exactly what happened in his life to get him to where he was. By opening up and confessing he was able to forgive himself for everything that he had done and move on. James also is very stubborn, and when he makes a decision he sticks by it. When he shares his plans for the future with his parents and Joanne, and they try to talk him out of it, James reminds them that "no offense to any of you, but this is entirely my decision." (326). He didn't always make the right decision, and in fact often in his past James made the wrong decision, but now that he has gotten sober he is able to make the more mature, rational choice to stay sober, and he will not go back on his decision. James's stubbornness, combined with his support system of good counselors, great friends, a loving family, and a girlfriend who went through everything right along with him, gave him the strength to stay sober.

I think that James has followed the 12 Steps more than he realized or would like to admit. Although he does not believe in God, I found many connections between his words, spoken aloud or not, and the content of the 12 Steps. I believe that the fact James had been unconsciously thinking about each of the steps all along has helped him to remain sober upon his release.

(Taken from http://silkworth.net/aa/12steps.html)
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
“I start writing again from the age of ten. The age when I started to lose control. Thinking back it seems like maybe I didn’t do the things I did, that someone else did them and I just watched” (Frey 395).
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
“If there is anything higher I seek it is this. Calm. If there is God or something Higher for me it is this. Calm. If there is something that will hold me when I need to hold it is the calm” (230).
3. Made a decision to turn [or not turn] our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
“I can feel it in the beating calm of my heart. It is not God and it is not something Higher. This feeling of calm if of me, within me, from me and created by me” (230).
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
“Twenty-two pages filled with my wrongs, my mistakes, my lapses in judgment and my bad decisions” (397).
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
“I start reading. I read slowly and methodically. I read every word and I recount every incident... (403).
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
“I don’t want to be that way again, and I think talking to you about what I did and confessing it, if that’s even the right word, will help me to prevent something like that from happening again. Now that I have, and told you everything else, I’m finished” (406).
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
“I take a deep breath and I let it our slowly. As it leaves me, so does everything I wrote, everything I said, everything I have done. It’s gone. All of it. It’s fucking gone” (406-407).
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
“Hurt People who didn’t deserve to be hurt. Hurt People who didn’t deserve it” (395).
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
“You didn’t do anything, Mom. This isn’t your fault... Don’t be sorry, Mom. I’m the one who should be sorry” (304).
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
“I call it being responsible. I call it the acceptance of my own problems and my own weakness with honor and dignity. I call it getting better” (307).
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
"The Sun is warm and bright and shining, the Sky is blue blue blue. Animals and birds are calling and screaming and playing, foraging for food. A breeze brings a spell of cold and another breeze carries the cold away...” (128).
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
“I hold Lilly and she cries and we start down the stairs walking slowly and carefully if I let her go she will fall. She is broken and lost and high, she doesn’t know what’s happening. If I let her go she will fall... We’re Home now. Everything’s going to be okay” (356-357).

I don't think that James's recovery is realistic in the slightest. After living an entire life with no sense of control in any area (besides getting more and more OUT of control), plus the fact that he had been an alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three years (keep in mind that most of this happened in the critical developing parts of his life, meaning there would be much more severe biological and psychological problems/ difficulties with living the sober life that his body had basically never seen before), AND because he technically resisted all of the suggested methods for recovery...it just doesn’t seem remotely plausible for him to ever stay sober as “easily” as he did. I don’t think I can really give any solid textual evidence for this belief. All I know is that every time James said he would never drink or do drugs again because he "decided not to," I just wanted to shake my head or shake Frey’s shoulders and say, “Obviously this is unrealistic! Stop it!” I can’t think of an effective way to back myself up here...I think I’m just too critical of this book. But no, I don't think that this was an accurate depiction of recovery. I think that maybe his depictions of actual rehab were accurate, and I think that maybe it IS possible to make a huge turn around. I just don't think that James's specific turn around was realistic at all.

I do believe that James was able to turn his character around in the six weeks of "treatment", despite his resistance to the conventional methods. Although it is really very sad to see James earlier in his life, decades without sobriety and decades of self hatred and loneliness, I do think that through revelations including family and friends, Lilly in particular, he was able to turn his head around. Even though Lilly was kind of said to be a replacement addiction, I do think that she was the catalyst to his mental improvement. Even though he was kind of "addicted" to her, shaking when he received his first letter, that it is natural. I have spent time thinking about people, maybe not staring at them for a couple hours during a lecture, but definitely to the point where they are on your mind for the majority of the day, overshadowing your thoughts. "I miss you. I laugh. You miss me? Yeah, I miss you. Why's that funny? No one has ever missed me before. People tend to be happy when I'm gone. She laughs. Not me. Good. I like that you miss me. I like it too. I smile." (213). Since his first couple of interactions with Lilly, and his caring for her, I think that he started to care for himself because of this. He started to feel the warmth of his bed, food, and clothing, and falling asleep with a smile on thinking about her, compared to not remembering going to bed for the past 15 or so years of his life.

I think that although James' interactions with his friends like Leonard and Miles are very important, I believe that once he makes progress in terms of his relationship with his parents that he is on the up-slope to recovery. "The only way I'm going to get better is if I accept responsibility for the decision to either be an Addict or not be an Addict. That's the way it has to be with me." (306) Continuing onto the end of that particular interaction... "...the three of us hug each other it is strong and easy and full of something maybe love. The Fury flares and I am momentarily uncomfortable, but the strength I am giving and the strength I am taking kills it. Easily and quickly. The giving and taking kills it." (308). After a life without love and care, to experience this raw emotion with your parents, it doesn't surprise me that he was able to suppress the fury with such ease. By being blind to such positive and strong emotions for so long, being sheltered by such self-hatred and darkness, I thought it was a matter of time before the significance of intimacy and warmth were reintroduced into his life.

Although James is damn stubborn, particularly with his views on the twelve steps and accepting a higher power, I do admire his mental tenacity and his new found strength within himself thanks to the people around him.

I have never, and hope never to hit the low that James did in his life after a decade and a half of solid drug abuse. However, I can't help but admire his incorrigible stubbornness in the face of the overwhelming odds. When the odds in my life turn out to not be in my favor (Hunger Games reference, YES), I hope to have even half of the resolve and steely, cold determination that James describes. The sections where he denounces the idea of blaming his addiction and bad decisions on his genetics or childhood experiences resonated particularly strongly with me, and a review on the back said it all: "it's a staggeringly sober book...and a finger in the eye of the culture of complaint" (Philadelphia Inquirer). It pulled me up short--James was able to see past the haze of complaining and blaming everything on science (and as a pre-medical student and bio major, this reminded me of just how much I pass responsibility off to things I "can't control", like my genetic makeup), and conquer himself by realizing himself. To me, his repeated avowals that he is an "Alcoholic, drug Addict, and a Criminal" are empowering, because he never once forgets his past in his efforts to move into the future. He didn't have time for the 83%, the people who blame everything but themselves and then go right back to feeding their addictions.

Even though he spends only six weeks at the Treatment Center, he says on page 375, "it feels as if I have been here forever forever for fifty fucking years forever." I know I have no idea what it's like to be in rehab, but I often think about relativity, and time "slowing down" or "speeding up". I have to remind myself every few pages that each minute, especially in the beginning, is a struggle, that every carefully regulated schedule has to be fought through right from the start, in James' continuous effort to regain control of his body and his mind.

To some, six weeks may not look like enough time for a drug addict and alcoholic to fully recover. To others, six weeks may feel like a lifetime. Like Amy mentioned in her comment, James states that his stay at the center, "feels as if I have been here forever forever for fifty fucking years forever" (375). Time passes by at different paces for different people. Although we saw great improvement in James within the first few days of his visit, I think he still needed the full six weeks to fully switch his mind over to thinking differently. By chasing after Lily and having that encounter in the "crackhouse" I think James's strength was put to the test, and by only telling himself he could not have the drug (crack), he did not try it. It was this mindpower that James built up within his time at the center that pulled him through and made him resist what he at one time desired so much. James made up his own rules and he promised to live by them. He said he would resist the urge to drink and do drugs and so he did...because he made that promise to himself.
I feel like the power and strength within one person's mind can direct that person to what he can and can not do. An example of this mindpower is by Matty promising to himself that he is not going to swear. His friends all wanted him to give in and just swear, they didn't see what the big deal was. But to Matty, not swearing was a huge acomplishment to himself. By not swearing and sticking to his word it showed that he had the strengh and mind power to reservere and not give in to what others wanted him to do. Matty's strength is shown at the fighting match, "Someone tells him he should give it up and just start swearing again and he tells them no way no way, I ain't ever gonna fricking swear again" (378). I think the Boxing match was a great metaphor for the fights and struggles that people like Matty and James have dealt with within their life. All it took was change of mind in James to turn around his views on life and the decisions that he made and will make in the future. It was the power in his head that made him change and turned his life around. No amount of time could have made James change or not change. It was all up to him: it was his mind, his power, his strength. Once he realized he had that strength to change his way of living, of thinking, then I think he fully recovered. Who knows if six weeks was enough time or not...in the end it came down to what James thought. It was his mindpower that pulled him through.

To a certain extent I agree with Maggie on this one. It seems unlikely that he would succeed given how stubborn and self-involved he was. Ken and Joanne try their best to give James one more piece of advice and tell him his odds are "a million to one" to which he responds, "a million to one doesn't scare me" (410). As we talked about before I think he is overly cocky; realistically I think that this would be his downfall and he would push his luck too far and end up falling back into addiction. My prediction is proved wrong of course when he goes into the bar and has a fight with a glass of whiskey and wins. Coming back into the front bar he says, "I touched it and I smelled it and I felt it, but I didn't drink it. I'm done drinking. Won't ever do it again" (430). The ending just seems too perfect to be reality. It seems to much to say that this is his happy ending.

I was never very skeptical of the book until these last couple of sections we read. I don't know if the material got less believable, or if the doubts we addressed in class and that I heard on the side just started to get to me. However, I agree with Maggie and Sally that his recovery just doesn't seem plausible to me. Where was this seemingly unshakable self-resolve and strength of will during the previous decade of his life? Those are not traits one sprouts overnight, or even over a number (like six) of weeks. On page 94 during his "obituary" he mentions that he tried to quit a few other times. Where was his steely resolve then? No doubt rehab gave him a sense of security that boosted him for a while, and he does recognize the strength this gave him: "I am scared of losing the protection and security that exists within these boundaries" (416). Yet he requests that his parents don't allow him any safety net upon leaving rehab, and of course he has none of the same security in the real world that he does in the clinic. And I don't think it's fair to pin his newly found strength on Lilly either, because through out college he had an even stronger attachment to Arctic Eyes, so seemingly he should've found similar resolve in her love as well, which wasn't the case.

So I guess what I'm saying is, while there is the minute possibility that this could be a beautiful story of a reborn mindset and newly found strength, I can't help but doubt that that is the case. I just have difficulty believing that someone who was an addict for ten plus years could spend six weeks in rehab, and then the day they are released stick their nose in a pint of their favorite alcohol and be able to resist the temptation.

I don’t really think James has benefitted much from the actual program the clinic uses, but rather from sharing experiences with the people around him. I think being forced to spend time with others like himself who are putting in the effort to make a change in their lifestyles causes him to take an outside perspective on his own life, allowing him to make the changes necessary for success. Having the time to contemplate his actions and reflect on his life allows James the opportunity to realize the difference between facing your problems and running away from them. I wouldn’t say that James has mastered facing his problems just yet, but he has learned to, “accept the events of [his] life as they come. [He] will deal with them. Good and bad they will both come. [He] will accept them in the way that [he] is accepting [himself].” (371) James no longer wishes to run from his problems, leading him to drugs and alcohol and a life of numbness. He desires the feeling of emotion, and wants more than just a life of ease. He is ready for life, and because of this new mindset, I believe that James has truly benefitted from his stay at the clinic, even if it wasn’t created through the intended program.
Not only is James ready to accept life, but he also claims that he has learned to accept himself. I truly think it is possible to make the turn around he is hoping for, because unlike most people (in the 83%), James is looking within himself for change, rather than through his conditions. Many patients agree to follow all the rules, acknowledge that their problem is partly to blame on genetics, and create a solid support system before leaving the clinic. Yet so many of them continue to fail after being on their own for a bit. James is taking a different route, blaming only himself for his problems, and relying only on himself for his future. He has already been faced with a difficult situation and proven himself strong though, which makes me believe that he will be strong enough to be in the 17%.

“I take the stack of twenty-two yellow pages I have been carrying around with me out of my pocket…I read every word, relive every memory. I take the photos from the envelope…I look at every photo, I relive every memory….I put the flame beneath the yellow paper…I watch my memories burn away. I am through with them. Fucking through. It is time to say good-bye.”

I chose this quote for the main reason that it is representative of James’ devotion to destroy his former life. Now, it is impossible to destroy the life he once lived, for the total results of it will never fade from his thoughts. His past will continue to serve as a constant reminder of the life he is trying to leave and lead to the life he wants to live. However, the only way he can move on is to erase as much as he can. Although he is burning the memories of the Girl with the Arctic Eyes, he is burning away (or at least trying to) all the memories of that lifetime.

It was powerful for me to read, “It is time to say good-bye” because I realized the determination within James, as well as the milestones he had achieved for his short yet long 6 weeks in the Clinic. By saying good-bye I saw James giving up on the troubled life he had lived and saying hello to a hopeful future. He was also saying goodbye to the people of his past who hadn’t done him good. While in rehab, I think that James made connections with people that taught him the most about himself, making him realize who he was and more importantly, who he wanted to be instead. As Cassi pointed out, it really wasn’t the Clinic program that helped him, it was who he was with. All rehab did was keep drugs and alcohol out of reach. In my opinion, James, with the help of his Clinic mates, did all the rest. As I spoke to in the last prompt, if James was able to develop his own methods which kept him in rehab until he was ready to say good-bye, then I feel as though he has the will power to say goodbye to his old lifestyle forever. If I were told at the beginning of this book that James would make it out of rehab on good terms, and never relapse, I wouldn’t have believed it to be true. Now I believe, as Caroline said, that the 17% is just a number, and it was just a number that James really was strong enough to belong to, regardless of the doubt that everyone may have had in him.