Title: Dry: A Memoir Author: Augusten Burroughs Publisher: Hodder What is it about the name Burroughs and addictions? William S was the famous gay junky who shot his wife in Mexico during a blurry game of William Tell; his son was a shocking alcoholic drinking his way through one liver and its transplanted replacement and Augusten (no relation) is also profoundly a pisspot, or was until his bosses sent him off to gay rehab after one too many bender breakfasts. What follows is his journey through the self-evisceration of analysis and group therapy, his day to day struggles back in New York and sober, and of course the incredibly gorgeous boyfriend who just happens to be a crackhead with a mountain of money to smoke away. Addiction memoirs are a fairly common theme these days, Elizabeth Wurtzel's More, Now, Again the standout account of injecting Ritalin on an hourly basis. Dry measures up fairly well, though not because of Burroughs' narration of himself. After all, self-obsessed, neurotic gay boozehounds who love their advertising jobs and ignore their ex, dying of AIDS, in favour of hanging out with crackheads are a dime a dozen in NYC, despite Bill Hicks imploring them all to an altruistic self destruction. But as annoying as Burroughs gets, what's to be remembered is he's writing this, detailing unflinchingly every aspect of his failures, like an extended attempt at AA chronicling, a vital part of recovery, of stability and of life itself. And as a fellow recoverer I found kidney-belting moments of identification, are these days but welcome, a reminder of ways not to be and people who helped me get here. Burroughs, author of Sellevision and the better-known Running With Scissors, has written an impressive, smoothly flowing and intelligent account of how one man can fuck up again and again and again.