Resumo de Dry (a Memoir) - Augusten Burroughs

The renowned author of The New York Times Best seller, Running with Scissors, which is on the list now for the 129 th week, has produced a sequel to it, in the form of the above memoir. The young Augusten continues to be the central character. He has joined an advertising agency as an ad writer, in New York. Although his work in the ad agency is reasonably good, but his drinking is troublesome, & both he & his house are in mess. He sprays cologne on his neck & tongue, & takes Breath Assure capsules to hide the smell of the liquor taken by him. The HR representative of the ad agency, wants Augusten to go to a rehabilitation centre, for counseling for one month. The book revolves around the process of rehabilitation of Augusten & some others from the use of alcohol, interspersed with some other characters & events. At the rehab centre, Augusten is in a group which has twenty patients including Kavi, the sex addict, Ms. Paul, the pregnant alcoholic & drug addict, Ms. Marion, (leader of the group) alcoholic & drug addict, Ms. Rae, alcoholic & prostitute, After twenty days, Hayden, a British national(staying in USA illegally) joins due to cocaine use. Augusten & Hayden start loving each other. In group therapy, one by one they do affirmations, talk of consequences e.g. loss of job & loss of friends etc., write a letter assignment about their problem & one-on-one therapy. Augusten speaks about his love for his best friend Pig head & their having sex. Then he starts dating Tim, Ned, Julian & Eric. Later Pig head was found HIV positive. During one-on-one therapy session also, Augusten tells the story about Pig head. Rae advises Augusten to continue therapy as out-patient, after release from rehab. After rehab. is complete, Augusten returns to his apartment & empties Dewar bottles in toilet & flushes twice. He wants to attend AA meetings regularly for life. In Healing Horizons, Augusten prepares for group therapy plan further. There he meets 33 years old Foster, alcoholic & drug addict. Augusten tells his past story to him. Foster wants to have a crush on Augusten, (though not allowed in group therapy). Alcoholics should avoid going to the bars, & also they should defocus, i.e. focus on something else. For them life without taking & without thinking liquor is not so easy. Augusten is going through a bad patch in life, was about to get relapsed, but wants a hobby. Bill & Hayden get relapsed. Foster also quits therapy. Unable to talk to Foster on telephone for several days, Augusten goes to his apartment, & they make love. Augusten & the team are in LA for the shooting for the commercial for their German client. The problems come in the open & cause stress, since the Commercial is to be re edited. In this meeting, Augusten comes to know that Pig head is in hospital & he visits him. Pighead comes home as skeleton without urine control, but Augusten helps him. Augusten buys a bottle of Black label, & partly drinks at home & then Augusten & Keith, both drink. Later on, on learning of the death of Pig head, he goes there. Ten months later, Augusten is insanely drunk, buys & smokes Crack Cocaine, with three young black men & a girl Serena. As per telephone from Richter, the jewellery ordered by Pighead for Augusten is ready, & this is collected by him. It is a gold pig's head with engraving "I am watching you. Now stop drinking." Augusten walks a long distance, cries & goes home. Next day, he takes liquor from store & drinks again, sleeps, becomes sick, takes rest but he is unable to say I will never drink again.
The life of Augusten is thus, drinks & drinks again & finally, his rehab process is also a failure, since he finds it very difficult to do without drinks. It is not clear whether he earns the sympathy of the readers, but certainly not their admiration. The author has his own style of humour e.g. (quote)It is weird that no matter how drunk I get, I can always remember my Adult check password.(unquote) and again (quote)There are hundred one bottles of scotch occupying all floor space not already occupied by a bed or a chair......And the truly odd part is that I really do not know how they got there.(unquote) At some places the language used (even for some of the women characters) is foul & with sexual bent, though to a much lesser degree, than in the earlier memoir. It gives a faithful narration of events, which keeps the interest of the reader alive till end. The overall impression is that, it is an absorbing, fast moving, some what funny & interesting memoir. However, it is sad to learn about the failures of Augusten & others in their efforts in the rehab, & it would have been better, if the memoir would have ended on a positive note.

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