Hi,
i posted to this board a few months back, asking for info about the history and legality of AARC, to whom my brother was handed over 9 months ago. (thanks again to Wes, antigen and velvet for their support and foresight last summer; i've just re-read your replies, and things have panned out more or less as you feared they would...) soon after i posted, my dad, obviously tipped-off by AARC staff, posted his own message/challenge/demand here and asked to "hear your stories", which many very generously told.
(anyone else still being embarassed by their parents in public?)
anyway, i just wanted to let you know how things are going.
i just got off the phone with my AARCed brother, who i hadn't been allowed to correspond with for the past 9 months. the last time i spoke to him was also on the phone: i had been told by my parents that he would be voluntarily entering the program the following day, and so could i please call at such and such a time to lend my support, say 'chin up', that i was there for him, etc. i objected vigorously, then as now, with "normalizing" my wayward bro through thought-control, but i was *really* apoplectic at the idea of him being forced into the place against his will, which had been the earlier threat. but apparently he had now seen the light, admitted his helplessness, and agreed to go to an 'initial meeting' to discuss the possibility of being 'recovered' at AARC.
i hated the idea of endorsing the idea that AARC is a valid therapeutic option, but reasoned that i might be the only skeptical voice my bro would be hearing for a while. and so, reluctantly, i called, he answered, and after a few leading questions like 'so, are you alright about this, are you nervous, what exactly happens tomorrow?' -- to which he replied with increasing mystification -- i realized he had no idea what was going on, and that my dad had lied about him 'accepting his fate' and agreeing to the meeting. he was very clearly still out of the loop, and about to be ambushed. i'll always regret not saying then and there RUN FOR THE HILLS! or ROVER, IT AIN'T THE VET YOU'RE GOING TO SEE TOMORROW!, but instead i just asked my perplexed, but alas, unsuspicious brother to put my dad on. cue yelling. anyway, that was the last time i heard my brother's voice until tonight -- utterly befuddled by my nonsensical abortive pep-talk.
tonight he answered too -- he's been back at home since late august. first thing i noticed was how much the pitch of his voice has changed (he sounds a lot more like me); second thing was the tone: upbeat in a hollow sort of way, needlessly eager and 'positive' about everything from the weather to what he was watching on tv. which was most unlike his former self. anyway it didn't take long before i was making grasping attempts at damage assessment, trying to ascertain whether he's had a tune-up, or an overhaul. i said it had been a long time since we talked, and that a lot had happened since then, etc, and asked in a general way about AARC. now, this bro had a very laconic, sneering sense of humour before 'recovery', but it seems that not a scrap of irony or detachment is even intelligible to him now. a string of breathless, formulaic platitudes were delivered with a practiced air -- i got a very strong impression that he was used to doing this, and, what is worse, that he got some sort of satisfaction out of rehearsing the AARC catechism.
it was a cookie-cutter speech more than a conversational reply, and it rapidly became apparent that not only the phrasing but the thinking was utterly robotic. i mildly questioned the doctrine of personal powerlessness, and abject dependence on The Program (as revealed in what he rather disturbing called The Big Book), by suggesting that what progress he has, undoubtledly made in overcoming some serious problems was surely at least PARTLY down to his own, inward strength -- that in fact he MUST have had some independent hand in the matter, and so was not powerless after all. this met with the very same mystification of 9 months ago. when i pressed him on whether it wasn't worth questioning any of the jargon he now expertly dispenses, he actually said to me "i don't know what to say."
i noticed a rather chilling lack of frustration or exasperation with my increasingly rebarbative second-guessings -- but it became obvious that my brother didn't really ackonwledge that we were having an argument, contesting a point that was up for grabs -- i was simply mistaken, and he couldn't find quite the right way of correcting me. nothing to ruffle the feathers there -- he spoke with a calm, self-validating authority which made every certitude beyond doubt.
so i suggested more forcefully that his speechlessness, his not knowing what to say next, was itself good evidence that he had previously been reading from a kind of script...at which point he simply put the phone down and walked away. i hope it's not 9 months before i get to talk to him again; but on this evidence it seems i won't *ever* be talking to the person i called 9 months ago, again.
also creepily notable: after my mom picked up the abandoned receiver, i learned that my family are having xmas dinner tomorrow *at AARC*, with no private meal at home to complement it. maybe not significant in itself, but indulge a literary person a bit of interpretation: AARC has usurped the function of my extended family, at the traditional time for refreshing and celebrating familial bonds. the official devotions tomorrow at AARC will no doubt be Christian, but implicit to this unorthodox xmas is a *consecration* of the institutional community, a sacralizing of the shared bond (of dependence to AARC). the structural movements of the christian story take on an eerie second sense in such a scenario: sacrifice, rebirth, redemption -- or is that 'recovery'?
any of this sound familiar? debunking and analyzing it like this is cold comfort, but the only way i get any sense of control over how this is working. i don't know if i'll answer the phone when my parents call tomorrow.
