Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

by Mark Vonnegut Md

The place I felt most welcome and comfortable was AA meetings, even though there was a sticky-sweet optimism there I found insufferable. “The grace of God won’t take you where the grace of God can’t keep you.” “You never get more than you can handle.” “You won’t die from not drinking or not sleeping or being afraid.” “Ha.” The people who had died from not drinking or sheer fright were respectfully dead and quiet and unavailable for comment. I was quite sure I was going to be one of them. I had slowly and carefully consumed a lethal dose of alcohol and alcohol equivalents and would eventually die from either drinking or not drinking. My biggest problem was figuring out how to get word back to these cheerful pabulum peddlers when I died from not drinking. I wanted to have a gravestone carved: “Mark got more than he could handle.”