B. Wells Author

Gossip Erodes

The decade of the 1980’s was a whirlwind of energy, music, and drugs. I was in my early twenties and the electricity and creativity during that time made the world feel closer and I heard the promise of success.

Much of that had to do with cable television. Now every city and small town got access to non-stop sports, movies and MTV. I saw Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller” and was awestruck. In a funny twist of fate, I saw its first airing. I don’t remember the circumstance and once it came on, it was as if nothing else was in the room. The music, costumes, dance and story filled me. In that moment a new era had begun.

Basketball wasn’t all that great for me. It had more to do with how they filmed it in the early days. Once the camera was placed on the closer to the action and I witnessed the athletic superstars of Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird I was in.

Remember I said drugs, I will get back to that.

I attended a prestigious graduate school from 1979-82 in Chicago, Ill. My master’s degree was in Theatre Arts. The program had 60 students. It was difficult to audition for and more difficult to be accepted. All 60 of us knew how lucky we were. We basically did everything together for three years.

I studied costume history and learned how to walk and talk in elaborate costumes as if I had been born in them. Voice and speech taught me how to deliver long monologues without boring the audience. More importantly, I learned how to use my voice, costume and movement as a vessel to unlock emotions for the audience.

The 1980’s was also the decade of the yuppies. The men who set out to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible no matter how. Remember I mentioned drugs? It was the time of “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Ronald Regan became president in a surprise upset over incumbent Jimmy Carter. Reagan, and the people supporting him, feared he wouldn’t get elected and made unscrupulous bargains with tainted money. The unspoken promise was he’d turn a blind eye to the cocaine kings if they donated cash to the campaign. If you don’t understand that connection I suggest you check out the Iran Contra scandal. You will have to dig deep because it’s been suppressed for years. The pieces won’t easily fall together, and once you see it, a light will illuminate the entire decade and not just in America but Britian, Cuba, and Columbia. I found it transformative.

But I digress. What I am trying to point to is during the early 1980s drugs were everywhere, not just Miami, FL.

I wasn’t into drugs. One of my classmates paid for his tuition to our expensive university by selling drugs. It was an unspoken secret. I was lucky to get a partial scholarship and took on work study, I did odd jobs around the school for a reduction on my tuition. For my living expenses, I worked at a busy pizza restaurant. I look back at time and wonder when I had time to breathe.

Again, I digress.

A few of my school chums had a problem with alcohol and couldn’t say as I did, “Nah, I’ll pass.” They gave me crazy looks when I said that.

After graduation our lives didn’t interact as much. I was off pursuing agents, casting calls, and making connections. I was lucky. Small theatres saw my resume and hired me to play parts in Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw and, because of my dance background, musicals. None of them paid very well, if at all. I was told it was for exposure. Okay, fair enough.

I kept waitressing as a survival job. I got commercials for Ford, Healthy Choice and a local dress shop. The Ford ad aired on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and turned into a nice paycheck. However, print work was my bread and butter. Apparently, I had the look of an upper-class housewife. I posed as a customer choosing paint for her kitchen, a woman doing laundry and beyond happy for her new washing machine, and a career woman out shopping with friends to name a few.

I lost touch with the drug selling classmate. He spiraled down a dark hole of despair and in a few years after graduation, he chose to end his time on the planet. A group of us gathered to celebrate his life, wicked sense of humor and mourn our loss. His death shook most of us, and more specifically the ones that recognized the inability they had to say no to a night of partying. That’s when the rehab cycle began for some of my friends.

I was invited to attend family week for two friends. Warned I might find out I was alcoholic, I figured that would be good to know, then I could do something about it, duh. Because I had no fear, I invested in learning all I could about addiction. Counselors, therapists, and nurses determined, I had no dependency problems. I still stayed for family week and was fascinated by the people there and their journeys.

I learned about AA and its humble start in 1935, the twelve steps, and why it will always be anonymous. Privacy, the need to have a place in which one can speak freely and admit to shortcomings is the cornerstone of the program.

What I found was a community filled with grace. Grace, something we have lost sight of in these hyper critical days. Grace, the ability to see oneself in another, see the whole person, with flaws, weaknesses and beauty. To see someone not for what you can get out of them, that’s sales, but for what you can give. Grace is a space, an openness without judgement or walls. Grace, something I was told the religion in which I was brought up would give me and never did.

Where did I find it? In smoke filled community basements sitting on hard folding chairs and served bad coffee listening to stories of temptations and forgiveness.

Lately, I’ve heard a few podcasters bash AA. Spoken from a place of rumor and gossip they say that AA groups are now a front for trafficking rings, drug pushers, and identity thieves. It could be true. AA groups are filled with vulnerable people, and there are those that prey on the weak. The trouble is that all AA groups will be tainted and the people that need grace the most could be excluded. Maybe that was the point. Pull down one more sacred space.

What can one do inside a climate of jealousy and greed? Consider of one of the core tenants of AA: There but for the grace of God go I.

Bring grace.