Hollywood: God ls Nigh

There are 2,000 AA meetings a week in Los Angeles; will religion make a movie comeback? By Benjamin J. Stein

A specter is haunting Hollywood. The almost never drank, but he just smiled. “try it,” specter is God, borne down Sunset Boulevard he said, “You’ll like it.” on the wings of Alcoholics Anonymous. lt would And indeed I did. From the first meeting be hard right now to imagine a more atheistic I went to in Beverly Hills almost eight months community than the people who make prime- ago until now, I have been moved by the way time-TV and feature movies. The result is that that A.A. cleans up messy, wrecked lives. At it’s almost impossible to find a Hollywood every meeting their is a similar format. After product with real human characters who make a prayers and brief readings from “Alcoholics decision based upon religion. Television viewers Anonymous,” the basic text, one or more once saw a sincere Archie Bunker down on his persons stands up and talks about what it was knees and praying to God, but more recently, like before A.A., how he or she happened to studio and network executives wince when they come to the program and how he or she lives are presented with a pitch about a character without drugs and alcohol. Some of these talks who talks about God unless he is an Elmer are astoundingly graphic. Gantry-type hypocrite. At one of the first meetings I went to, a I suspect that this is about to change. An young man told about how, when strung out on entire generation that came of age in the ’60s intravenous cocaine, he would hold his arm over and ’70s, that thought that cocaine, alcohol and a fish tank, cut into his veins with a razor and pills were the inevitable accompaniment of work watch the blood flow into the tank and turn the in “the biz” are now recoiling from the disorder water pink.” Another man recounted how he that drugs have wrought in their lives. They are could almost simultaneously shoot cocaine into retreating to A.A. And therein lies a tale of how each of his arms while he also smoked A.A. and Hollywood work. freebase. Others, by the score, told of getting I would never have known about this drunk and crashing into telephone poles – then were it not for a few things that happened to me sailing through windshields. They talked about in late 1987 when I became a father for the first drunk tanks and jails. time at the age of 42, lost more than I could Personally, I appreciated the more afford to in the stock market crash and learned analytical approach. One man, who spoke for that a loved one was a drug addict. Like any almost every addict I have ever known, said that good American, I asked my docior for the means he had been a “heartbroken child.” He had to cut the anxiety, allow me to work and let my carried that heartbreak around with him all of his eyes close in sleep at the end of the day. Soon, I life until he met alcohol and drugs and then had my cupboard filled with sleeping pills and found that they organized his life. They took tranquilizers; with chloral hydrate and away the pain and allowed him to succeed at his meprobamate, Xanax and Halcion to take the work – until they so disorganized his life that he edge off reality. Within months I was walking literally fell apart. A.A., its tenets, its group around in a sort of prescribed fog. I felt far willpower, its spiritualism, he said, had helped better, but I still had a real problem – the pills him put his life back together. were doing nothing about them. I told a friend I found this form of public confession that I wanted to see what my life would be like deeply atfecting. But more than this, this without medication that dulled the sharp edges. quintessentially Protestant, holy roller sort of He suggested that I go to A.A. I told him that I ritual (albeit delivered with startling restraint

considering the subject matter) struck me as key leave the land of mirrors and lines and tinkling to how and why A.A. works. ln fact, an A.A. glasses, they enter the world of public meeting is not unlike a revival meeting. The confession and prayer. excitement and attention that were conferred by These are the very same people who drugs and alcohol are now provided by bearing write the scripts, direct the movies, star in them witness. And Roman Catholics, Jews and high and produce them. And 12 years of working end Protestants averse to smiting their breasts here have taught me that what the “creative in public are being “saved” – even applauded. talent” have on their minds is what they put into They are being given the kind of reinforcement their work. lf A.A. has put God on their minds, that substitutes nicely for drugs and alcohol. then it’s fairly clear that God will soon appear on big and little screens – his presence also Public confession: There is an even acknowledged by rock musicians since A.A. is more basic borrowing from religion in A.A. or in particularly popular among performers and their Narcotics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous: produces. all of these 12-step programs devote a lot of Talk about high concept in Hollywood. time and attention to praising God for lifting the The wheel is coming full circle. As the habits of curse of their addiction, one day at a time. Fully the’60s make life unworkable, A.A. offers a way six of the famous 12 steps of A.A. talk about out. Religion, laughed out of town in the ’60s and relying on God or on following a “Higher Power.” ’70s, is making a comeback via the inevitable A.A. in short, is a lot like religion. And at fight from the same forces that drove it out in the the present moment, this religion is sweeping first place. This is going to shape mass culture, I Hollywood. There are more than 2,000 A.A. suspect, in a big way. Stranger things have meetings per week in Los Angeles, many of happened. them jammed with people in the entertainment As for me, I take it one day at a time. business. As the Hollywood movers and shakers

Source: Newsweek, December 12, 1988.

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