Day 63: Lights

Yesterday I went to visit a couple of guys who have left the treatment programme (one finished the twelve weeks, one was asked to leave after eight), over in the 'supported housing' block where they live together with twenty or so other men with addiction problems. It was a strange place: the ensuite rooms, secure entry system and smell of stale smoke making it somewhere between a hotel, prison and student halls-of-residence.

Unexpectedly, a guy came into the communal kitchen who was discharged from the programme in my second week, following a relapse. The deterioration in his appearance was shocking. He had lost weight and teeth, and his hands and face were covered in sores which the others later told me were cigarette burns. He told me that, after leaving, he went on a bender culminating in a five-day stay in the psychiatric ward of Mile End Hospital.

He said he was back in AA meetings, trying to stay off the drink and feeling "better", but his wild eyes told a different story. It's a terrifying place back out there.

P.S. I was two months sober yesterday!



INFINITE JEST: Pages 666-679