The End of My Addiction

pickled in alcohol. Later I learned that AA and CBT are most effective for addicted patients, although the results even then are not remarkably positive, after at least six to eighteen months of abstinence.
    In the best circumstances, talk therapy can be a frustrating process of chasing symptoms. For those born with temperaments that include, or dispose them toward, serious anxiety, mood, or personality disorders, identifying triggers for anxiety and depression does nothing to address their biological origins and mechanisms. I don’t mean to say that talk therapy has no benefits, only to note its obvious medical limits.
    During our talks Dr. T. repeated several times, “Addiction is a spiritual problem. Why can’t you get spirituality?”
    “I don’t understand,” I said. “Please tell me how.”
    “You’ll grasp it in time.”
    “Meanwhile I’ll die waiting for spiritual enlightenment.”
    Instead of brushing that off, Dr. T. said sympathetically, “Yes, that is possible. But we must try our best to get you well just the same.” He advised me to go into a private rehab clinic in Paris for the rest that had been cut short in my second stay at Clear Spring.
    I had lived outside France for so many years that I no longer qualified for government-paid health care, and the private clinic was expensive, if not as costly as Clear Spring. Although I paid part of it, my mother bore most of the bill, which left me feeling bad. But I stayed there for almost four weeks in November and December, and the rest did me good.
    Before I left Paris, I paid a call on my old boss, Raymond Barre. In 1980–81, as a young doctor doing obligatory national service in the French army, I had been chosen to inaugurate the position of physician to the prime minister and cabinet of France. Barre was then prime minister, and we had formed a very warm relationship over our shared love of classical music. When I applied for cardiology fellowships in the United States, I did so with the benefit of Barre’s handwritten letter of recommendation.
    Raymond Barre did not know that I had become an alcoholic, and I was relieved that I was in good enough shape to see him without looking ill. At the end of a long chat he said, “You know, cher ami , we must initiate the procedure for you to receive the Legion of Honor for your contributions to the image of France abroad and to cardiology. My secretary informs me that next year it will be fifteen years since your M.D. thesis, and that is the earliest date a physician can receive it.”
    I was stunned. My guilty conscience made me want to blurt out, “But if you haven’t heard, I am now a hopeless drunk and a total failure. Don’t embarrass yourself by proposing me.” But I kept quiet out of my own embarrassment and shame, and I left Barre’s office thinking that in the process of assembling a dossier to submit me for the Legion of Honor, he would learn about my alcoholism in some other way and drop the idea.
    Returning to New York in mid-December, I wrestled with the notion that addiction is a spiritual problem. It occurred to me that I knew an expert on spirituality, my friend Elie Wiesel. When Elie won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, the judges saluted him as “one of the [world’s] most important spiritual leaders and guides.”
    Elie had become a good friend many years before, and we spoke a lot on the phone about this and that. He and his wife, Marion, lived near me on the Upper East Side, and Elie often invited me for long chats on Saturdays. Afterward, Elie and Marion sometimes asked me to stay and observe Shabbos with them or to spend the rest of the weekend in the country with them and other friends.
    Elie did not know about my problem drinking. To talk to him about spirituality and addiction, I first had to get my nerve up by having a couple of drinks. I telephoned him in Florida, where he and Marion were spending a winter vacation.
    “Elie,” I said, “I am an alcoholic.”
    “What?”
    “Yes, and I was told I need spiritual guidance. Can I ask you for some advice?”
    Elie said, “I am devastated to hear this…just devastated…just devastated. You should seek medical help, Olivier.”
    “I have the best medical help there is. I am surrounded by that. But I have been told alcoholism is a problem of spirituality. Jung said it is due to a spiritual vacuum. I don’t know what that means. I don’t understand it. Can you help me?”
    Elie said again, “Ah, you should see a