People Like You, Page 2

had five good jobs but could not stay sober. I just cannot leave the stuff alone. I read your book and got the impression that you are like me and you have had trouble staying sober but now after being in the nut house you are sober. Is that a fact?

  The doctors cannot help me. They tell me that they do not know what to do with People Like Me. But I read your book Asylum, which I understand you wrote after living at for seven months behind the walls of the mental hospital where you went for acute alcoholism.

  Seabrook

  Yes, that is basically true. I am sober now and hope to stay that way. (The following dialogue is adapted from p. 53. Asylum.) So long as any man drinks when he wants to and stops when he wants to, he isn't a drunkard, no matter how much he drinks or how often he falls under the table.

  Silence

  Seabrook

  It is not the drinking that makes the drunkard. I had drunk for years, enthusiastically, and with pleasure, when I wanted to. Then something snapped in me, and I lost control. I had to have it even when I didn't want it. I couldn't stop when I wanted to. Instead of being joyful, it was awful. I went to the nut house because I had lost control when I drink, not because I drink a lot or too much for that matter.

  M.M.

  But what was wrong with you that you drank like that? Didn’t the doctors pinpoint the problem and fix it so that you would not want to get drunk.

  Seabrook

  No !! I stopped wanting to get drunk but I still had to drink. That was who I had become. A Drunk. When I went to the nut house in 1934, I was just like the rest of them, nuts. I stayed there for seven months and when I came out sober I wrote the book about it.

  M.M.

  I would rather die a drunkard than to be locked up in a nut house. Going to my grave would be more acceptable than going to an asylum.

  Seabrook

  Mrs.. Mann I understand how you feel. I felt that way once myself. Here is what I recommend to you. There are hospitals that admit drunks and help them get sober. These hospitals have charity patients for tax purposes and I suggest that you find one and get yourself admitted, that is if you are serious about getting the monkey off of your back. Are you serious? I hope so !!

  M.M.

  Yes !! I will do anything, go to any length to find sobriety. Dr. Kennedy says that I have to Stop Drinking Completely Forever. I just want to be normal. He also says I need a job but most of all I need to make a decision to not drink any more, no matter what happens. I think I am crazy but he says no, I have a physical illness and alcohol makes it worse.

  Seabrook

  That may be true. But the other nutty doctors around here and all over the world all say that if we stop drinking for a period of time, we can return to normal drinking and get on with our lives. I like that idea better than the FOREVER idea.

  M.M.

  Yea that is what I want. I want to be a normal drinker. I have been here in Doctors for six months and I am dry, will that count? I am going to do whatever I have to do get rid of this drinking too much.

  Man in white coat with a stethoscope walks into the room. It is Dr. Kennedy. Marty introduces him to Seabrook

  M.M.

  Dr Kennedy I want you to meet a man who knows about drinking. I have done my research on alcohol in some of the finest pubs and salons in the world but this man has done even more than me. Willy Seabrook. Willy this is Dr. Foster Kennedy, the doctor I told you about who has told me that I cannot ever drink again.

  DR. Kennedy

  I am pleased to meet you Mr. Seabrook. I have read your books and Asylum is a powerful argument favoring giving up alcohol once and for all. I have examined Mrs.. Mann and I cannot find any physical maladies.

  M.M.

  See. I am crazy. What can I do?

  DR. Kennedy

  I have found an exclusive private psychiatric treatment in Greenwich, Connecticut. They take a few inebriates although there is little hope for them to get over their drinking. Dr Harry Tiebout, MD is a Psychiatrist and he is the Medical Director at Blythewood.

  M.M.

  I have already met him. He told me that people like me cannot drink at all. I told him that I do not like people who do not drink at all. He does not drink and like all the self-righteous dull, gray do gooder teetotalers are all the same. They have big white teeth. live narrow lives and want everybody to be dull and gloomy like them so they say don’t drink.

  DR. Kennedy

  Yes I know he is like that but he has been impressed by your intelligence and by your honesty and more than anything else, your earnest desire to stop destructive drinking. Blythewood has an opening for a scholarship for one woman. If you want to go there Marty, you might get some help.

  M.M.

  I have no other options. I cannot stay here. My family can’t take care of me. My friends have all had it with me. I have no job, no home, no prospects, no money, no self respect, no confidence, no courage, no humanity. I still have pride but no one will know that I am a charity patient. Take me to Brywood Asylum.

  Lights fade to soulful music.

  Act III

  Blythewood

  Scene I

  Four ladies sitting at one four tables in Dining Room of the Middle House at Blythewood Sanitarium – a large 19 Century historical estate (Dialog between four women telling why they are at Blythewood.

  Anna

  I am Anna. I am a nurse. I work here at Blythewood and I make it my job to sit with new comers to help them become comfortable. Tonight I am welcoming Mrs. Marty Mann, to my right. She is from New York City and she will be working with Doctor Tiebout.

  Silence and the ladies all smile at each other.

  Anna

  Directly in front of me is Martha. She is also from New York City. She also works with Dr. T. And to my left is Nona Wyman who lives nearby in Greenwich. She also works with Dr. T. Martha why don’t you tell us about yourself?

  Martha

  Well. I live in New York City with my husband and children. I drink a lot and would like to stop but it has been impossible up to now. I was in Doctor’s Hospital last month and they say I escaped but I just walked out the door and got drunk right away. They could not find me and the hospital was scandalized by the New York Times coverage. It was no big deal but my family is embarrassed and wants to disown me. I am here as a last resort. Dr. Tiebout is my doctor. Nothing has been useful for my not wanting to drink.

  M.M.

  I remember you. I was at Doctor’s Hospital also. Your story in the New York Times was great. Good enough for them. They are puzzled by people like you. I think it’s great.

  Martha

  When I came here a few weeks ago they put me in the lockup house which is on the back of the campus furtherest from the road. Here it is called the violent house and it has a padded cell. You can hear people there screaming some times. I stayed there about ten days and moved to this house, the middle house. I want to move to the graduate house so I can go home soon. I think I am cured and will be able to drink like normal people.

  Anna

  Nona. Would you like to tell us about yourself?

  Nona

  Well, my name is Nona Wyman. I live in Greenwich with my husband who also drinks a lot. We have tried to stop but for me it of no use. I am hopeless and so is my husband. We cannot work because we cannot stay sober. My husband, Walter, and I go to this place in Kent, Connecticut. It is a farm called High Watch Farm . It is run by Sister Francis and while we are there neither of us wants to drink. Maybe when we all get out of here we can go to High Watch.

  Anna

  Thank you Nona. Now Mrs.. Mann do you feel like telling us about yourself?

  M.M.

  I was born in Chicago. A distant relative of the renowned educator, Horace Mann. When I was 14 I came down with TB and lived in and out of hospitals for about six years. Even before that I knew I was different from other girls although I am a female. I always wanted to play the male part when we played house or doctor or whatever. I wanted to be the father, the
brother, the quarterback, the home run hitter.

  You see, I was born a lesbian but I tried to conform to what was expected of girls but I wanted to be a boy. Once I told a pretty girl friend that if I were a boy I would ask her to go stead. She ran away and I never saw her again. Another time I told a girl how I felt and she shrieked and laughed and ran away and I never saw her again either. These experiences really affected me and my homophobia began to fester inside of me.

  When I was nine or ten and reached puberty my girl friends began to notice boys and wanted to be with them but I did not. I was heartbroken and felt abandoned. I wanted to play football and baseball and ride bicycles with boys but I did not want boys like my girl friends did. My friends giggled with boys and wanted to be touched by them but I want to compete with them. I rough housed with boys. Since I was with boys I let them look at my body parts and feel them because I wanted to play with them, not for sex. So I became the boy’s guinea pig.

  Then in my second decade I reached puberty and I really tried to change. I became sensitive and fearful of my feelings. I tried harder to conform to the female role as I perceived it. I wanted to be like the other girls in my class so I got a boy friend.

  We went steady for seven years. We were really buddies. I got a motorcycle and a truck and we worked on cars together. Sex was an obligation that I endured mostly but that is not to say that I did not get aroused and get something out of it but mostly I did not.

  That relationship ultimately became physically abusive. I would hit him and he would hit me. That continued through high school and into my third decade.

  In my third decade, when I