Текст книги "The Wolf of Wall Street "

Автор книги: Jordan Belfort

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Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

“I don’t think so,” I sputtered. “Starting tomorrow there’s gonna be maid service in this joint. You can talk to her about it.” I walked into the bedroom, slammed the door, and dialed Alan Lipsky to tell him about the very insanity of the Talbot Martians. We laughed for a good fifteen minutes and then started talking about old times.

Before I hung up, I asked if he’d heard anything from the Duchess. He said he hadn’t, and I hung up the phone sadder for that fact. It had been almost a week now, and things were looking grim with her. I flicked on the TV and tried shutting my eyes, but, as usual, sleep didn’t come easily. Finally, sometime around midnight, I did fall asleep—with another day of sobriety under my belt and a raging hard-on inside my underwear.

The next morning, eight o’clock sharp, I called Old Brookville. The phone was picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?” said the Duchess softly.

“Nae? Is that you?”

Sympathetically: “Yes, it’s me.”

“How are you?”

“I’m okay. Hanging in there, I guess.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I…I called to say hi to the kids. Are they there?”

“What’s wrong?” she said sadly. “You don’t wanna talk to me?”

“No, of courseI want to talk to you! There’s nothing in the world I want more than to talk to you. I just didn’t think you wanted to talk to me.”

Kindly: “No, that’s not true. I do want to talk to you. For better or worse, you’re still my husband. I guess this is the worsepart, right?”

I felt tears coming to my eyes, but I fought them down. “I don’t know what to say, Nae. I…I’m so sorry for what happened…. I…I—”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t apologize. I understand what happened, and I forgive you. That’s the easy part, forgiveness. Forgetting’s a different story.” She paused. “But I do forgive you. And I want to go on. I want to try to make this marriage work. I still love you, in spite of everything.”

“I love you too,” I said, through tears. “More than you know, Nae. I…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how it happened. I…I hadn’t slept in months and”—I took a deep breath—“I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s all a blur.”

“It’s my fault as much as yours,” she said kindly. “I watched you killing yourself and just stood there and did nothing. I thought I was helping you, but I was really doing the opposite. I didn’t know.”

“It’s not your fault, Nae, it’s mine. It’s just that it happened so slowly, over so many years, that I didn’t see it coming. Before I knew it I was out of control. I’ve always considered myself a strong person, but the drugs were stronger.”

“The kids miss you. I miss you too. I’ve wanted to speak to you for days now, but Dennis Maynard told me I should wait until you were fully detoxed.”

That rat fuck! I’ll get that bastard!I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. The last thing I needed was to lose my temper with the Duchess on the phone. I needed to prove to her that I was still a rational man, that the drugs hadn’t permanently altered me. “You know,” I said calmly, “it’s a good thing you got those second two doctors to come to the hospital”—I refused to use the words psych unit—“because I despised Dennis Maynard more than you can imagine. I almost didn’t go to rehab because of him. There was something about him that just rubbed me the wrong way. I think he had a thing for you.” I waited for her to call me crazy.

She chuckled. “It’s funny you say that, because Laurie thought the same thing.”

“Really?” I said, with contract murder in my heart. “I thought I was just being paranoid!”

“I don’t know,” said the luscious Duchess. “At first I was too much in shock to pick up on it, but then he asked me to go to the movies, which I thought was a bit out of line.”

“Did you go?” The most appropriate method of death, I figured, would be blood loss through castration.

“No! Of course I didn’t go! It was inappropriate for him to ask. Anyway, he left the next day and that was the last I heard of him.”

“How come you wouldn’t come see me in the hospital, Nae? I missed you so bad. I thought about you all the time.”

There was a long silence, but I waited it out. I needed an answer. I was still struggling as to why this woman, my wife—who obviously loved me—wouldn’t come visit me after a suicide attempt. It made no sense.

After a good ten seconds, she said, “At first I was scared because of what happened on the stairs. It’s hard to explain, but you were like a different person that day, possessed or something. I don’t know. And then Dennis Maynard told me I shouldn’t come see you until you went to rehab. I didn’t know whether he was right or wrong. It wasn’t like I had a road map to follow, and he was supposedly the expert. Anyway, all that matters is that you went to rehab, right?”

I wanted to say no, but this wasn’t the time to start an argument. I had the rest of my life to argue with her. “Yeah, well, I’m here, and that’s the most important thing.”

“How bad are the withdrawals?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I haven’t really had any withdrawals, or at least any I could feel. Believe it or not, the second I got here I lost the urge to do drugs. It’s hard to explain, but I was sitting in the waiting room and all of a sudden the compulsion just left me. Anyway, this place is kind of wacky, to say the least. What’s gonna keep me sober is not Talbot Marsh; it’s me.”

Very nervous now: “But you’re still gonna stay there for the twenty-eight days, right?”

I laughed gently. “Yeah, you can relax, sweetie; I’m staying. I need a break from all the madness. Anyway, the AA part is really good. I read the book and it’s awesome. I’ll go to meetings when I get home, just to make sure I don’t relapse.”

We spent the next half hour talking on the phone, and by the end of the conversation I had my Duchess back. I knew it. I could feel it in my bones. I told her about all my erections and she promised she would help in that department just as soon as I got home. I asked her if she would have some phone sex with me, but she declined. I would keep after her about that, though. Eventually, I figured, she would break down.

Then we exchanged I love yous and promises to write each other every day. Before I hung up I told her that I would call her three times a day.

The next few days passed uneventfully, and before I knew it I had made it a full week without doing drugs.

Each day we were given a few hours of personal time, to go to the gym and such, and I quickly insinuated myself into a small cadre of kiss-ass Martians. One of the doctors—an anesthesiologist who’d had a habit of anesthetizing himself while his patients were on the table under his care—had been at Talbot Marsh for over a year, and he’d had his car shipped down. It was a piece-of-shit gray Toyota hatchback, but it served its purpose.

It was about a ten-minute car ride to the gym, and I was sitting in the right backseat, wearing a pair of gray Adidas shorts and a tank top, when I popped an enormous woody. It was probably the vibrations from the four-cylinder engine, or maybe it was the bumps in the road, but something had sent a couple a pints of blood to my loins. It was a huge, rock-hard erection, the sort that presses against your underwear and needs to be adjusted and then readjusted, lest it drive you insane.

“Check this out,” I said, pulling down the front of my gym shorts and showing the Martians my penis.

They all turned and stared. Yes, I thought, it looked good. Despite my height, God had been very kind to me in that department. “Not too shabby!” I said to my doctor friends, as I grabbed my penis and gave it a few yanks. Then I slapped it against my stomach, which created a rather pleasant thud.

Finally, after the fourth thud,everybody started laughing. It was a rare moment of levity at Talbot Marsh, a moment between guys, a moment between Martians, where the normal societal niceties could be stripped away, where homophobia could be entirely ignored, and men could be just that: men! I had a fine workout that afternoon, and the rest of the day passed uneventfully.

The following day, just after lunch, I was sitting in an astonishingly boring group therapy session. My counselor strolled in, asking to see me.

I couldn’t have been happier—until two minutes later, when we were sitting in her small office and she cocked her head to the side at a very shrewd angle and said, using the tone of the Grand Inquisitor, “So, how are you, Jordan?”

I turned the corners of my mouth down and shrugged. “I’m okay, I guess.”

She smiled warily and asked, “Have you been having any urges lately?”

“No, not at all,” I said. “On a scale of one to ten, I would say my urge to do drugs is a zero. Maybe even less than that.”

“Oh, that’s very good, Jordan. Very, very good.”

What the fuck? I knew I was missing something here. “Um, I’m a bit confused. Did someone tell you that I was thinking about using drugs?”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “It has nothing to do with that. I’m just wondering if you’ve had any other urges lately, anything other than drugs.”

I searched my short-term memory for urges but came up blank, other than the obvious urge to bolt out of this place and go home to the Duchess and fuck her brains out for a month straight. “No, I haven’t had any urges. I mean, I miss my wife and everything and I’d like to go home and be with her, but that’s about it.”

She pursed her lips and nodded her head slowly, then she said, “Have you been having urges to expose yourself in public?”

“What?” I snapped. “What are you talking about? What do you think, I’m a flasher or something?” I shook my head in contempt.

“Well,” she said gravely, “I received three written complaints today, from three separate patients, and they all say you exposed yourself to them—that you pulled down your shorts and masturbated in their presence.”

“That’s a complete load of crap,” I sputtered. “I wasn’t jerking off, for Chrissake. I just yanked on it a few times and slapped it against my stomach so we could all hear the sound. That’s all. What’s the big deal about that? Where I come from, a little bit of nudity between men isn’t anything to write home about.” I shook my head. “I was just fucking around. I’ve had an erection since I got to this place. I guess my dick is finally waking up from all the drugs. But since it seems to bother everyone so much, I’ll keep the snake in its cage for the next few weeks. No big deal.”

She nodded. “Well, you have to understand that you traumatized some of the other patients. Their recoveries are very fragile at this point, and any sudden shock could send them back to using.”

“Did you just say traumatized? Give me a fucking break! Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme? I mean…Jesus! These are grown men we’re talking about! How could they have been traumatized by the sight of my dick, unless, of course, one of them wants to suck on it. You think that might be it?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”

“Well, I’ll tell you that no one in that car was traumatized. It was a moment between guys, that’s all. The only reason they ratted me out was because they want to prove to the staff that they’re cured or rehabilitated or whatever. Anything it takes to get their fucking licenses back, right?”

She nodded. “Obviously.”

“Oh, so you know that?”

“Yes, of course I know that. And the fact that they all reported you makes me seriously question the status of their own recoveries.” She smiled the smile of no hard feelings. “Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that your behavior was inappropriate.”

“Whatever,” I muttered. “It won’t happen again.”

“Fair enough,” she said, handing me a sheet of paper with some typing on it. “I just need you to sign this behavioral contract. All it says is that you agree not to expose yourself in public again.” She handed me a pen.

“You’re shitting me!”

She shook her head no. I started laughing as I read the contract. It was only a few lines, and it said just what she’d indicated. I shrugged and signed it, then rose from my chair and headed for the door. “Is that it?” I snapped. “Case closed?”

“Yes, case closed.”

As I headed back to my therapy session, I had this strange feeling that it wasn’t. These Talbot Martians were a strange lot.

The next day it was time for another roundtable discussion. Once more, all hundred five Martians and a dozen or so staff members sat in a great circle in the auditorium. Doug Talbot, I noticed, was conspicuously absent.

So I closed my eyes and prepared for the drizzle. After ten or fifteen minutes I was soaking wet and half asleep, when I heard: “…Jordan Belfort, who most of you know.”

I looked up. My therapist had taken over the meeting at some point, and now she was talking about me. Why? I wondered.

“So rather than having a guest speaker today,” continued my therapist, “I think it would be more productive if Jordan shared with the group what happened.” She paused and looked in my direction. “Would you be kind enough to share, Jordan?”

I looked around the room at all the Martians staring at me, including Shirley Temple with her wonderful blond curls. I was still a bit confused as to what my therapist wanted me to say, although I had a sneaky suspicion that it had something to do with me being a sexual deviant.

I leaned forward in my seat, stared at my therapist, and shrugged. “I have no problem talking to the group,” I said, “but what is it that you want me to say? I have lots of stories. Why don’t you pick one?”

With that, all hundred five Martians turned their Martian heads toward my therapist. It looked like the two of us were engaged in a tennis match. “Well,” she said therapeutically, “you’re free to talk about whatever you want in this room. It’s a very safe place. But why don’t you start with what happened in the car the other day, on the way to the gym?”

The Martians turned their heads back to me. Through laughter, I said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

Now the Martians looked back at my therapist…who pursed her lips and shook her head, as if to say, “Nope, I’m dead serious!”

How ironic, I thought. My therapist was giving me center stage. How glorious! The Wolf—back in action! I loved it. The fact that the room was half females made it all the better. The SEC had taken away my ability to stand before the crowd and speak my piece, and now my therapist had been kind enough to restore that power to me. I would put on a show the Martians would never forget!

I nodded and smiled at my therapist. “Is it okay if I stand in the middle of the room and talk? I think better when I’m moving.”

A hundred five Martian heads turned back to my therapist. “Please, feel free.”

I walked to the center of the room and stared into the eyes of Shirley Temple. “Hi, everybody! My name is Jordan, and I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict and a sexual deviant.”

“Hi, Jordan!” came the hearty response, accompanied by a few chuckles. Shirley Temple, however, had turned beet-red. I had been staring right into her enormous blue eyes when I’d referred to myself as a sexual deviant.

I said, “Anyway, I’m really not much for talking in front of crowds, but I’ll try my best. Okay, where should I begin? Oh, my erections—yes, that’s the most appropriate place, I guess. Here’s the root of the problem. I spent the last ten years of my life with my dick in a state of seminarcosis as a result of all the drugs I was doing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t impotent or anything like that, although I will admit that there were about a thousand or so times I couldn’t get it up because of all the coke and Ludes.”

Scattered laughter now. Ah, the Wolf of Wall Street! Let the games begin!I raised my hand for quiet.

“No, seriously, this isn’t a laughing matter. See, for the most part, when I couldn’t get it up, I was with hookers, and that was about three times a week. So I was basically throwing my money out the window—paying upward of a thousand dollars a pop and not being able to even sleep with them. It was all very sad, and very expensive too.

“Anyway, they usually succeeded in the end—at least the good ones did—although it took a bit of coaxing with toys and such.” I turned the corners of my mouth down and shrugged, as if to say, “Sex toys are nothing to be ashamed about!”

There was great laughter now, although without even looking I could tell it was the sound of female Martian laughter. My suspicions were confirmed when I looked around the room and saw all the female Martians staring at me with terrific smiles on their kind Martian faces. Their Martian shoulders bounced up and down with each and every giggle. Meanwhile, the male Martians were shooting daggers at me with their Martian eyes.

I waved my hand dismissively and soldiered on: “No matter, no matter. You see, the irony is that when I was with my wife I never really had that problem. I could always get it up with her—or at least usually—and if you saw her you’d understand why. But when I started snorting a quarter ounce of coke a day, well, I was having trouble with her too.

“Yet now that I haven’t touched a drug in over a week, I think my penis is undergoing some sort of strange metamorphosis, or maybe a reawakening. I’ve been walking around with an erection twenty-three hours a day…or maybe even more.” A huge burst of female Martian laughter. I looked around the room. Oh, yes, I had them! They were mine now! The Wolf, spinning his yarn for the ladies! Center stage!

“Anyway, I thought some of the men here would appreciate my plight. I mean, it seemed only logical that other people would be suffering from this terrible affliction too, right?”

I looked around the room and all of the female Martians were nodding in agreement, while the male Martians were shaking their heads back and forth, staring at me with contempt. I shrugged. “So, anyway, here’s where the problem started. I was sitting in the car with three other male patients—dickless patients, I’m now thinking—and we were driving to the gym, and I think it was the vibrations from the engine or maybe it was the bumps in the road, but, whatever it was, out of nowhere I got this huge erection!”

I looked around the room, carefully avoiding the blazing gazes of the male Martians—relishing instead the adoring looks of all the female Martians. Shirley Temple was licking her lips in anticipation. I winked at her, and I said, “Anyway, it was just a harmless moment between guys, that’s all. Now, I won’t deny that I yanked on the snake a few times”—a burst of female Martian laughter—“and I won’t deny that I slapped it against my stomach once or twice”—more laughter—“but it was all done in jest. It wasn’t like I was yanking on it ferociously, trying to make myself come in the backseat of the car, although I wouldn’t pass judgment on anyone who did. I mean, to each his own, right?” An unidentified female Martian screamed, “Yeah, to each his own!” to which the rest of the female Martians started clapping.

I held up my hand for quiet, wondering how long the staff would let this go on. I suspected they would let it go on indefinitely. After all, for every second I spoke there was some insurance company receiving a bill for each of these hundred five Martians. “So, to sum it up, to tell you what’s really bothering me about this whole affair, is that the three guys who turned me in, whose names will go unmentioned—although if you come up to me afterward I’ll gladly tell you exactly who they are, so you can avoid them—they all laughed and joked about it while we were in the car. No one confronted me or even hinted that they thought what I was doing was in poor taste.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You know, the truth is that I come from a very dysfunctional world—a world of my own construction—where things like nudity and prostitutes and debauchery and all sorts of depraved acts were all considered normal.

“In retrospect, I know it was wrong. And I know it was insane. But that’s now… today…as I stand here a sober man. Yeah, today I know that midget-tossing is wrong and that getting scrummed by four hookers is wrong and that manipulating stocks is wrong and that cheating on my wife is wrong and falling asleep at the dinner table or on the side of the road or crashing into other people’s cars because I fell asleep at the wheel, I know all these things are wrong.

“I’m the first one to admit that I’m the furthest thing from a perfect person. I’m actually insecure and humble, and I embarrass easily.” I paused, changing my tone to dead seriousness. “But I refuse to show it. If I had to choose between embarrassment and death, I’d choose death. So, yeah, I’m a weak, imperfect person. But one thing you’ll never find me doing is passing judgment on other people.”

I shrugged and let out a very obvious sigh. “Yeah, maybe what I did in the car was wrong. Perhaps it was in bad taste and it was offensive. But I challenge any person in this room to make a case that I did it with malice in my heart or to try to fuck up someone else’s recovery. I did it to make light of a terrible situation I’m in. I’ve been a drug addict for almost a decade now, and although I might appear to be somewhat normal, I know I’m not. I’ll be leaving here in a couple of weeks, and I’m scared shitless to go back into the lion’s den, to go back to the people, places, and things that fueled my habit. I have a wife, whom I love, and two children, whom I adore, and if I go back out there and relapse I’ll destroy them forever, especially my children.

“Yet, here, in Talbot Marsh, where I’m supposed to be surrounded by people who understandwhat I’m going through, I’ve got three assholes trying to undermine my recovery and get me thrown out of this place. And that’s really sad. I’m no different than any one of you, male or female. Yeah, maybe I got a few extra bucks, but I’m scared and worried and insecure about the future, and I spend the better part of my day praying that everything’s gonna wind up okay. That one day I’ll be able to sit my kids down and say, ‘Yes, it’s true I pushed Mommy down the stairs once while I was high on cocaine, but that was twenty years ago, and I’ve been sober ever since.’”

I shook my head again. “So next time any of you consider reporting me to the staff, I would urge you to think twice. You’re only hurting yourself. I’m not getting thrown out of this place so fast, and the staff is a lot smarter than you people think. And that’s all I have to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting an erection, so I need to sit down to avoid embarrassment. Thank you.” I waved my hand in the air, as if I were a political candidate on the campaign trail, and the room broke out into thunderous applause. Every last female Martian, every last staff member, and about half the male Martians rose to their feet, giving me a standing ovation.

As I took my seat, I locked eyes with my therapist. She smiled at me, nodded her head, and pumped her fist in the air a single time, as if to say, “Good for you, Jordan.”

The next thirty minutes was open discussion, during which the female Martians defended my actions and said that I was adorable, while some of the males of the species continued their attack against me and said that I was a menace to Martian society.

That evening I sat my roommates down and said, “Listen, I’m sick and tired of all the crap that’s going on around here. I don’t want to hear about how I forget to put the toilet seat down and how I talk too much on the phone or how I breathe too loud. I’m done. So here’s the deal. You guys are both desperate for cash, right?”

They nodded.

“Fine,” I said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Tomorrow morning you’re gonna call my friend Alan Lipsky, and he’s gonna open accounts for you at his brokerage firm. By tomorrow afternoon you’ll each have made five grand. You can have the money wired wherever you want. But I don’t want to hear another fucking peep out of either of you until I leave this place. That’s less than three weeks from now, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Of course they both called the next morning, and of course it greatly improved our relationship. Nevertheless, my problems at Talbot Marsh were far from over. But it wasn’t the luscious Shirley Temple who would complicate things. No, my problems came from my desire to see the Duchess. I’d heard through the Martian grapevine that, under rare circumstances, the staff granted furloughs. I called the Duchess and asked her if she would fly down for a long weekend, if I got approval.

“Just tell me where and when,” she’d replied, “and I’ll give you a weekend you’ll never forget.”

It was for that very reason that I now sat in my therapist’s office, trying to get a furlough. It was my third week on planet Talbot Marsh and I hadn’t gotten myself into any new trouble, although it was common knowledge among the Martians that I was attending only twenty-five percent of the group therapy sessions. But no one seemed to care anymore. They realized that Doug Talbot wasn’t going to toss me and that in my own offbeat way I was being a positive influence.

I smiled at my therapist and said, “Listen, I don’t see what the big deal is if I leave on a Friday and come back on a Sunday. I’m gonna be with my wife the whole time. You’ve spoken to her, so you know she’s with the program. It’ll be good for my recovery.”

“I can’t let it happen,” said my therapist, shaking her head. “It would be disruptive to the other patients. Everybody’s up in arms as it is about the alleged special treatment you get around here.” She smiled warmly. “Listen, Jordan, the policy is that patients aren’t eligible for furloughs until they’ve been at the rehab for at least ninety days—and had perfect behavior. No flashing or anything.”

I smiled at my therapist. She was a good egg, this lady, and I had grown close to her over the last few weeks. It had been shrewd of her that day, putting me before the crowd and giving me a chance to defend myself. I would find out only much later that she’d spoken to the Duchess, who had informed her of my ability to sway the masses, for good or ill.

“I understand you have rules,” I said, “but they weren’t designed for someone in my situation. How could I be held to a rule that requires a ninety-day cooling-off period when my entire stay is only twenty-eight days?” I shrugged, not thinking too highly of my own logic until a wonderful inspiration came bubbling up into my sober brain. “I have an idea!” I chirped. “Why don’t you let me stand in front of the group again and make another speech? I’ll try to sell them on the fact that I deserve a furlough, even though it goes against institutional policy.”

Her response was to put her hand to the bridge of her nose and start to rub. Then she laughed softly. “You know, I almost want to say yes, just to hear what line of shit you’re gonna give the patients. In fact, I have no doubt you’d convince them.” She let out a few more chuckles. “It was quite a speech you made two weeks ago, by far the best in Talbot Marsh history. You have an amazing gift, Jordan. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just out of curiosity, though, what would you say to the patients if I gave you the chance?”

I shrugged. “I’m not really sure. You know, it’s not like I ever plan out what I’m gonna say. I used to give two meetings a day to a football field full of people. I did it for almost five years, and I can’t remember a single time that I ever thought about what I was going to say before I actually said it. I usually had a topic or two that needed to be hit on, but that was about the extent of it. Everything else was spur of the moment.

“You know, there’s something that just happens to me when I stand before a crowd. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like all of a sudden everything becomes very clear. My thoughts start rolling off my tongue without even thinking about them. One thought just leads to another and then I get on a roll.

“But to answer your question, I’d probably use reverse psychology on them, explain how letting me go on a furlough is good for their own recovery. That life, as a whole, isn’t fair, and that they should get used to it now in a controlled environment. Then I’d follow it up by making them feel bad for me—telling them what I did to my wife on the stairs and how my family was on the verge of being destroyed because of my drug addiction, and how having this visit now would probably make the difference between my wife and me staying together or not.”

My therapist smiled. “I think you should figure out a way to put your abilities to good use; figure out some way where you get your message across, except this time do it for the greater good, not to corrupt people.”

“Ahhh,” I said, smiling back, “so you’ve been listening to me all these weeks. I wasn’t sure. Anyway, maybe I will one day, but for right now I just wanna get back to my family. I plan on getting out of the brokerage business altogether. I have a few investments to wind down and then I’m done forever. I’m done with the drugs, the hookers, the cheating on my wife, all the crap with the stocks, everything. I’m gonna live out the rest of my life quietly, out of the limelight.”

She started to laugh. “Well, somehow, I don’t think your life’s gonna turn out that way. I don’t think you’re ever gonna live in obscurity. At least not for very long. I don’t mean that in a bad way. What I’m trying to say is that you have a wonderful gift, and I think it’s important for your recovery that you learn to use that gift in a positive way. Just focus on your recovery first—and stay sober—and the rest of your life will take care of itself.”

I dropped my head and stared at the floor and nodded. I knew she was right, and I was scared to death about it. I desperately wanted to remain sober, but I knew the odds were heavily against me. Admittedly, after learning more about AA it no longer seemed like a patent impossibility, just a long shot. The difference between success and failure, it seemed, had a lot to do with getting grounded into AA as soon as you left rehab—finding a sponsor you identified with, someone to offer hope and encouragement when things weren’t going your way.