Take a moment to meet the people who have surrendered to the shattering realization that their lives have amounted to one big, luckless, awful nothing.
They are ordinary people whose lives, for whatever unhappy reason, cannot pull out of a hopeless descent.
Meet Herb, Allen, Dennis, Mary, Kay, Keith and Brenda–self-admitted zeros. A few of them have already ”flunked out” of some of California`s estimated 3,000 self-help groups such as Overeaters Anonymous and Neurotics Anonymous. For them, Failures Anonymous, southern California`s newest self-help group, is the last stand.
Every Tuesday evening they and others huddle in a semi-circle at Bert Jungmann`s small, two-bedroom apartment in a Los Angeles suburb and talk about the sorrowful litany of failures in their lives.
Last names are forbidden, and no one is asked to be specific about the unrelenting series of setbacks and disappointments that have brought them here.
”It`s okay to say you`re an alcoholic or a drug abuser. But to say you`re a failure . . . well, you just don`t say that in this country,”
Jungmann says.
ADMITTING FAILURE
It is shortly before 7 p.m. and Jungmann, 49, appears relaxed, sipping a cup of Postum as he waits for the eight people he will host this night. With his bushy brown hair and eyebrows and an unruly mustache, he looks like an English professor.
Little posters are tacked randomly to the white walls of the apartment.
”I am and that`s enough,” reads one. Another says, ”Be on your side, and not on your case.”
The desperados begin to arrive. ”Come in,” Jungmann greets them in a husky voice. ”If you`re feeling insecure, this is the place.” Shy smiles and awkward glances fill the room–failures eyeing other failures.
At 7:15, the session starts with Jungmann`s pronouncement, ”Hello everyone. My name is Bert. And I`m a failure.”
Jungmann and failure go way back. Although he scored in the top 2 percent on a high school IQ test, Jungmann graduated 63d out of 78 students. He changed majors twice at the University of Texas and then dropped out to join the Navy.
That didn`t work out, either, as he quickly flunked out of a flight-training program. He has had three failed marriages, low-level depression all his life, and spent a year in Overeaters Anonymous, where he learned the self- help concepts for the failures group while shedding 50 pounds.
A TURNAROUND
Jungmann says he`s feeling good now. He works as a substitute teacher in elementary schools and is working on a dissertation for a Ph.D in education at Pacific Western University in Los Angeles.
”Is there anyone else out there tonight who feels like a failure?”
Jungmann asks calmly. Cautiously, everyone raises a hand. A painful silence ensues. Dennis scratches his leg. Brenda, his wife, stares at the floor, while Herb squeezes one of the yellow pillows on the couch.
Jungmann started Failures Anonymous several months ago, shortly after he was divorced from his third wife–a failure he calls the last straw. He maintains that everyone lives according to a ”life script” written in childhood.
”My script was that I wouldn`t be happy and that I wouldn`t be successful, that I could never finish anything I started,” he tells the group. There was always the knowledge that I could never put out.”
The silence is broken when Jungmann asks Allen to read Failure Anonymous` ”affirmation.” Allen, a sewing machine mechanic in his mid-50s who has attended Neurotics Anonymous and Debtors Anonymous sessions, eagerly accepts the offer.
”Hi, I`m Allen, and I`m a failure,” he says, leaning forward so quickly that he nearly knocks his thick, black-rimmed glasses off his head. A tiny chorus of applause follows. The affirmation speaks of altering one`s behavior and the need to ”rise above the programming of the past.”
PEER SUPPORT
The group functions on private donations and without professional advisers, Jungmann explains. Members have sponsors from within the group to help them complete daily goals. The key is to keep journals in which to analyze behavior and note pads or bulletin boards for reminders of life`s routine tasks that need to be accomplished.
To build confidence, affirmative statements such as ”I`m okay” or ”I am a successful person” must be repeated.
Jungmann maintains that life`s damaging patterns can disappear with time and support. Failures Anonymous is there, he says, to help people rid ”the negative junk they carry around” inside themselves.
”There are millions of failures out there,” Jungmann says during a coffee break in which half the members dart to the door for a quick cigarette. ”Millions of them, all looking for help, someone to talk with.”
After the break, Jungmann gently coaxes the members of the group back to their chairs and passes a wicker basket around the room. Most members toss in $2 or $3. Allen reaches for a $5 bill.
It`s confession time.
Allen asks to tell his sorry saga first. ”I started the year with a therapist. I thought I was God. I kept having visions,” he begins in a rambling fashion. ”And I had a lot of anxiety. My wife divorced me and then I got out of OA (Overeaters Anonymous), then I got back in. Then I joined Neurotics Anonymous.
”I always feel sorry for myself,” he continues matter-of-factly, as if he has told his story many times before. ”I look to be put down. I`m not a real failure. It`s just that I have low self-esteem.”
No one is allowed to comment. And no one does.
Dennis, an attractive man in his early 30s, says he has created his only problems. ”I don`t do anything except eat, sleep and work. I`m caught up in a wheel and I can`t get out.”
Jungmann asks him to offer three positive traits he feels about himself. After some hesitation, Dennis says he loves his wife, he works hard and ”I feel good about the future.” Everyone claps.
Mary, a frail, gray-haired woman in her late 50s who trembles as she speaks, begins with the preamble, ”Hi, I`m Mary, and I`m a failure.”
More clapping. Mary says she`s trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, that her husband died five years ago and that she feels
”klutzy.”
”After he died, I tried to go back to graduate school, but I couldn`t do it. I can`t keep a job. I`ve had nine kids. I don`t know. I just can`t do anything. I feel like I really am a failure,” she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears.
Jungmann says nothing to comfort her. That`s not the way Failures Anonymous is supposed to work. Instead, he asks her to list some recent accomplishments.
Mary sighs. ”Well, I got through Christmas,” she stammers. People chuckle. ”And, well, I took my dog for a walk. And let`s see. Oh yes, I helped my son with some financial aid for college.” Hearty applause.
Kay, a slightly overweight, 40-year-old divorcee, can`t find a job that pays well and she wants a lover. She can`t understand why everyone she dates never calls back.
Brenda refuses to talk at all. Herb never came back after the coffee break, and Keith, the beer-bellied 49-year-old Korean War veteran, says the only thing positive that has happened in his life recently is ”that I killed a bottle of Southern Comfort over the weekend.”
Keith`s face reddens as Jungmann presses him further to cite something, anything, he has accomplished. Keith is unemployed, his wife divorced him years ago, his money is running short and there doesn`t seem to be any hope in sight. Even the Veterans Administration, he says, is giving him the runaround. ”I just can`t think of three accomplishments,” Keith says. ”Okay, I know. I did my laundry yesterday.” He is not trying to be funny, and each listener knows it; they clap for him.
Failures Anonymous has ended for the night, and everyone promises they will not fail to return next Tuesday. —
