So, I’ve been attending these meetings for an organization that helps people recover from their addictions using a proven twelve-step method. I’m not allowed to name it–the by-laws say that disclosure of any sort is forbidden. As a writer, I want to maintain a level of integrity, a standard of confidentiality and ethics, in whatever I do. So, in the interest of discretion, I will just refer to it simply by its initials: AA.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have a problem. But I have a friend who has a problem. He still has a problem and according to the tenets of AA, this problem will never go away unless he puts himself at the mercy of a higher authority and recognizes his absolute powerlessness before alcohol. This is the first step in the twelve steps: this basic recognition. And my friend now has made it through four more. So, I’ve been going to these meetings with him as moral support. I don’t go all the time. Just sometimes. I suspect that he believes I’m an alcoholic, just like him (which most assuredly I’m not; I’m a social drinker—that’s all), so he keeps inviting me to tag along.
There’s a research dimension to what I’m doing. In another blog, I mentioned that I helped my friend out during his attempted suicide (on a beach with a box cutter) and his month-long institutionalization (where I kinda became popular among the nursing staff) and then throughout his yearlong odyssey through rehab and sober-living facilities (where he lived separated from his wife, among men who were all grappling with their addictions). I’m not going to recap it but if you are interested in more in depth explanation, you can find it somewhere among my blog posts.
The capper is that, I ended up writing a novel about an alcoholic Vietnamese American detective. It will be the first ever Vietnamese American Detective Novel with the first ever Vietnamese American detective, written by a Vietnamese American writer.
Phew. That’s a lot of firsts. So I knew: I had to get things right. I couldn’t do anything half-assed. So, even after my friend was well on his way to attending meetings alone—without a mother hen around—I kept on tagging along. Sure, it’s kind of uncomfortable at first when they go around the room and everyone says that they’re an alcoholic…and then it’s your turn.
Khanh – You’re doing good I think on a lot of levels. You’re supporting your friend, you’re broadening your own perspective, and you’re growing as a writer. I can imagine there are plenty of awkward moments but all in all, I think you took the right decision to go along to those meetings.
Thank you, Margot. I don’t think I would have ever walked into a meeting without the pretense of helping a friend…but it was actually pretty awesome. It’s one of the few places where you come across folks from every walk of life…and everybody gets a turn to speak. You can see some bejeweled Beverly Hills matron next to an Army Veteran next to a homeless man and an ex-con. This is rare.
That’s pretty cool to be that supportive of a friend. And FYI — Others supportive friends go with their friends to meetings, too, so you’re not the only “civilian” around. There ARE meetings where everyone doesn’t have to go around the room and identify as an alcoholic, by the way, or raise your hand when the format asks if “there are any other alcoholics here today/tonight?”
Much has been written about alcoholism pre-and-post getting sober among mystery protangonists, but you’re still breaking ground!
PS –thanks for the all the get-butt-in-chair-and-write inspiration!
Thanks for the encouragement, Mark. I’m glad my friend is now better and on the right track. He actually went to Columbia University and harbored the long-time ambition to be an auteur. And now that he’s clean and sober, he’s actually finished his first novel…which he is releasing in a few weeks. So, I’m proud of him!