6. Plight Club [自助クラブ]
Some of my favourite drinks and people are alcoholic
As mentioned, I had a previous incarnation in Japan. Not in some past life of the soul, though it was certainly filled with spirit. Just prior to the coronavirus pandemic, during a couple of weeks visiting non-Japanese friends in Tokyo and Yokohama, I drank my fair share of the cities’ alcoholic offerings.
As I walked around back then, I was intrigued to see a mask-wearing Japanese public, though significantly less face-masky than they are now. In my experience, many Westerners scoffed at what they saw as excessive germophobia, failing to understand the cultural and health reasons behind it. Others admired the Japanese consideration for the wider community’s health. These contrasting viewpoints may have foreshadowed how they behaved during the pandemic.
With me now working with high school students, I apprehend how deeply society’s fear of contracting a deadly virus has affected their lives. Many of them continue to wear surgical masks like teenage comfort blankets. At the schools I work in, there are posters that warn against the dangers of drugs and piercings. And bicycles. The students there aren’t allowed to cycle to school. ‘Prevention is better than cure’, so the saying goes.
Getting back to the matter of drinking, preventing a hangover was never much of a concern for me, although I’ve often enjoyed heading to the pub the following day, on my bike, for a ‘cure’. In Tokyo, however, my friends handed me a couple of anti-hangover pills from the konbini before we started imbibing. Cans of Strong Zero—grape being my flavour of choice—flowed freely before we hit the bars of Shinjuku, and when we could no longer stand, we fell into one of the 24-hour karaoke joints. There we were, belting out songs in our own raucous Big Echo ‘silent orchestra’. Or was it one of the smaller karaoke chains? I don’t remember, but I do have a memory of Cardi B’s ‘Thru Your Phone’ being butchered on repeat because we just couldn’t even...
- “Change the fucking song! This shit is eating me!”
We should’ve been sleeping like babies, but we soldiered on with the booze we’d smuggled in.
- “We need another song to sing.”
- “I’m tryna put on something.”
- “You can’t operate the thing?”
- “I can’t operate the thing!”
- “It’s killin’ me, killin’ me, killin’ me, ohhHH!”
The next night, I paraded around the town embracing the cliché of the drunken tourist. But in my reckoning, I had a dash more panache. Infused with a zeal for communal joy, I sought to engage strangers in my merry endeavours. The dangling handrails on subway trains became gymnastic rings, and I performed some impressive L-sits and 360° pulls. Yet, somehow, my fellow passengers remained silently unimpressed. I was unaware of the ‘air’ that was supposed to be read, but I’m not sure I would have cared if I did. Their perceived disinterest only led to more attention-seeking behaviour from me. Whilst they observed like vigilant deer, their subtle movements and glances affirmed their acute sense of alertness, to which I showed no consideration.
What was the wildman out of his natural habitat going to do next? The answer was simple: Have more fun!
I didn’t do anything that I wouldn’t have done on a night out back home, but how was I supposed to know Japan was not my playground when everyone’s into Disney, out chasing Pokémon, and driving Mario Karts around the streets? I later discovered there are foreigners—including live streamers like He Who Shall Not Be Named—who take advantage of the generally non-confrontational nature of the Japanese to create a nuisance for monetary gain.
On moving here as an employed resident, I’d be mortified if anyone found out about my holiday antics. Is that what people call ‘shame’? If I’ve learned anything from AA, it’s to keep my side of the street clean. Then I don’t have to worry about guilt or shame. So, while admitting to being an inebriated fool on specific occasions, my new sense of civic responsibility has made me determined to assimilate as much as possible. And that means not drinking and having fun the way I normally would. Just be myself—only less so.
With this insight, I tried to remain positive, and embraced—obviously not literally—the introspective Japanese—whatever that truly means. Well, it means that after years of learning how to speak up for myself, and eschewing behaviours I saw as phony in the West, I found myself bound to even more pointless customs that have their roots in a different form of feudalism!
I’ve made efforts to observe sensitivities, ‘read the air’ in ways I hadn’t on my previous visit, and steer clear of gaijin bars. However, all these good intentions and actions are worth nothing without being able to speak some basic Japanese. Trying to connect meaningfully—or even flirtatiously—with Google Translate is stilted and often awkward. I’d hazard a guess that most people prefer conversation with a natural flow, isn’t it?
Curiously, technology, which I’ve used to try and connect with locals, is being used by some individuals to separate themselves from other humans. They order their food with their phone or a machine, they get served by automatons, and they eat partitioned apart from each other.
The alienation runs even deeper. I remember reading an article on the BBC website about the “plight of Japan’s modern hermits”, which explored ‘hikikomori’—a mental health condition describing individuals who retreat to their rooms, unable to face society. ‘I could never be like that’, I thought to myself, but I was definitely developing some form of anomie. The seemingly endless early morning rises and long, silent commutes to my pretty much meaningless ALT job— without the regular social blowouts I was accustomed to back home—were getting to me. I was exhausted when I wasn’t working. My mind was spiralling. ‘I have to be some kind of other man’.
‘I should just go out for a drink and meet someone, and try to connect’, I said to myself one afternoon slumped on my futon. But I only felt the weight of the effort it takes to get up and face a loud crowd with all the high-jinks of a bar, and that drive, that ‘up-for-it’ attitude one needs to even contemplate taking part in the whole melee, had gone.
One solution at this point might’ve been pre-drinks. I didn’t need liquid courage, but I didn’t want to go down the path of glycogen mobilisation just yet. ‘How can I energise my body and find what I need here to quieten my mind?’ I knew I needed to act before I lost myself in my own madness, and spin out completely.
I cried out as I rolled onto the linoleum.
- “The centre cannot hold; anarchy is loosed upon the world!”
So, on that dark and balmy November evening, not wanting to be alone in my room, I made it out of the apartment in search of a real-life situation to put the few sentences of Japanese I’d learned at the community centre to good use, and found myself heading to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting à la Marla Singer from ‘Fight Club’.
“It’s cheaper than a movie, and there’s free coffee.”
AA? Beyond the allure of caffeine, I did have a desire—well, a notion—to not drink, but really to meet people. This was me being responsible—my coping and connecting strategy. Maybe I’d find some natives to drink with at some point—it’dprobably a more sedate affair.
With my current work schedule, Strong Zeros, daily drinking, or even a hangover—complete with its now inevitable physical aches and dreaded dose of ‘The Fear’—the soul-crushing combination of paranoia and existential angst—is no longer negotiable. I can’t think of anything worse than being nauseous, head pounding and sweating bullets while having to feign the required illusion of productivity. Imagine being in that large room brimming with teachers analysing your every interaction, and having to stand to attention in front of a class of students who would surely take advantage of your tetchy, vulnerable state. Torture!
You might ask: ‘How can you compare self-inflicted misery to the literal torture happening in the likes of Sri Lanka or Turkey?’ And you’d be right. I’ve never been to those countries, even though they remain popular tourist destinations, but there’s obviously no comparison. Maybe ‘torment’ is a better word for it.
The AA meeting was held in one of the larger cities in Japan (I’m taking the whole anonymity thing seriously), and when I’d made my way to a room on an upper floor of a darkened office block—up a mahogany or rosewood-looking staircase lined with pictures of Christian saints, guided only by the sounds of a couple of English-speaking voices and a xanthous fluorescence—a big, middle-aged guy, with a cold-looking red nose, introduced himself amiably, asked where I was from as I sat down on the empty seat to his left, and, after I’d answered him, informed me that [So-and-So], to his right, was from [the country I came from], and then made a gesture indicating that the two of us should, in fact, talk to each other.
The other man was, maybe, in his mid-30s, I couldn’t really tell. His neatly-trimmed beard served as a counterpoint to his fresh feminine features. From his accent I could tell that he was from [an area of nearly 2 million people].
- “I’m from [an area of nearly 2 million people],” he nodded at me in acknowledgement.
- “Yeah, I recognised the accent. I lived in [a seaside town with a population of 4000], in [an area of nearly 2 million people], for a couple of years,” I disclosed—a more-or-less truthful attempt to gain some common ground.
- “No way! Me too!”
- “Yeah, I wasn't exactly in [a seaside town with a population of 4000], but down the road in [a village of 765 people]. Have you heard of it?”
I don't know why, but in that moment, I had a feeling I didn’t want to have too much common ground with my compatriot.
- “Fuck off! That’s actually where I’m from. Nobody’s ever heard of it. That’s why I say I’m from [an area of nearly 2 million people].”
- “Oh,” I replied.
- “Who do you know from [a village of 765 people]?”
I felt like asking why he wanted to know.
- “Uh-um, do you know [the woman with an unusual profession’s full name]?”
The woman I mentioned was an old flame of mine and, being the only person I knew from the village, was the primary reason I had moved to that beautiful backwater in the first place. If I’ve learned anything from AA, it was from being with her. She had talked a lot about it, and I had accompanied her to a few meetings of AA, NA, and CoDA.
When [So-and-So] responded, he used the familiar version of her name.
- “Oh my God! Of course I know [the woman with an unusual profession’s pet name],” he beamed. “I’m married to a Japanese woman now,” he hastily added.
I should’ve felt more surprised or some other emotion (that I won’t go into right now), although it’s no coincidence that this kind of thing always happens to me.[1]
The small room quickly filled up with an all-male cast of gaikokujin—so much for meeting Japanese people with a (war) story to tell. The chairperson—or chairman to be more apt—who was sitting directly to my left, called the meeting to order. He looked like a diluted version of Chuck Norris, who, as we all know, orders drinks and the drinks do exactly what Chuck commands. Here, though, it was a case of the drink taking the man.[2]
After the usual AA preamble, we went around the room introducing ourselves.
- “My name is [~], and I’m an alcoholic,” admitted the first alcoholic in the circle.
Here I was in another place that found safety in the familiarity of scripted language. And so it went round until, at last, it was my turn. With everyone else having declared allegiance to their affliction, I told them my name.
- “I’m [32ペロ].”
- “Hi [32ペロ].”
- “I don’t, as yet, know,” I confessed, “whether I’m an alcoholic. I really don’t like labels. For me, it’s more fluid—no pun intended.”
- “Most alcoholics, at some point in their lives, have said something similar,” explained the chairman with a cocktail of compassion and condescension. “Let’s read the thoughts for the day as planned, and then I’ll come up with a topic we can share in.”
In due course, the chairman invited sharing, posing the question:
- “How do you know you’re an alcoholic?”
He paused, a slight smile on his mouth, then firmly added:
- “Please remember that there’s no crosstalk or giving unsolicited advice.”
Let’s hear about the alcoholic experience, the stinking-thinking, the dis-ease, the allergy, that alcoholism encapsulates.
The first sharer was my compatriot. He introduced himself again.
- “I’m [So-and-So], and I’m an alcoholic.”
- “Hi [So-and-So],” everyone instantly chorused, with me, slightly phased, acting as a vague echo.
He thought for a moment.
- “Whenever I do something, it’s never in moderation. I always go overboard—whether it be drinking, or gambling, working, or fishing, well, not fishing, you don’t want to go overboard with that,” he waited a beat before continuing with, “and things just turn to shit. My relationship was heading down that familiar path. I could see the pattern like in previous relationships. One night, I came home late again, and my key wouldn’t open the door; my wife had put the second lock on…”
- “Deadlock,” helped the big guy (who absolutely wasn’t engaging in crosstalk).
- “Yeah… I was dead locked,” [So-and-So] thoughtfully then emphatically agreed.
The big guy (also not giving advice):
- “No, not you. That’s what it’s called—the second door lock. A deadlock. I always keep a spare key under a pot in case that happens.”
- “Thanks for that... Well, that night, I decided—if you could even call it that—to get totally naked and sleep on the front step. Next morning, I’m woken by this foot poking at my ribs. It’s my dear mother-in-law. My wife, cowering inside, too embarrassed to come out. I suspect there were a good few neighbours present… and some rubber-necking joggers, and God knows who else to witness my complete and utter shame. To this day I still feel utter humiliation. There she stood, the mother-in-law shaking her head and passing judgement on my ‘chīsai chinchin’—her exact words.
"Something bad didn’t happen to me every time I was drinking, but every time something bad happened, I happened to be drinking.”
Facts. Or platitude? I wondered as my compatriot carried on.
- “I made excuses, bought Bailey’s because the wife loves all that creamy stuff.”
I momentarily revelled in the nostalgia of my indulgent bathroom Bailey’s as he went on with his sharing.
- “As long as she was drinking, it was OK for me to be drinking. I’d buy her a can of beer on the way home from work, and a few for me—most of those would be gone before I got home. There was always an excuse to drink. A work thing. An event. ‘I have to entertain a client’. ‘Someone has a fancy bottle of red wine with a label and all’. Whatever. I was tired of the sneakiness.”
He paused as those memories etched anguish across his face. In that moment, I was reminded of a passage from ‘The Secret History’ (not the one by Procopius—that would have been a literary miracle, given my lack of Procopius exposure—but the one I had been reading on my flight to Japan). The passage spoke of a Hindu saint who could slay a thousand people on the battlefield and still be absolved from sin—unless he felt remorse. It struck me that I could drink without guilt, provided there was no one around to trigger it.
And so, my spinning out and subsequent presence at this meeting owed itself to cultural relativism. I was seeking the company of those who, at some point in their lives, had learned how to indulge and could show grace without judgment. I didn’t want someone to pour for me at a dainty tea ceremony. What I craved was my tribe of hedonists.
Some—probably everyone in this room (and The Rooms in general)—would argue that this was a merely a rationalisation. I saw it as a realisation. My love language is physical touch, and I had been lacking in love. As a ‘touch slut’ I can get charmingly lairy. That’s fine if you're with like-minded people. I wasn’t looking for a grope or a fight (I wouldn’t have ruled out a play-fight), but I did want to feel prana surging through me. I was searching for that sense of liberation that comes from emotional and physical connections, dopamine hits, and endorphin rushes. No aggro, no addictions. No non-consensual interactions, no buyer's remorse. Can I get all that? But not on a school night.
My life had gone from Dionysian to Sisyphean in the blink of a few months and I didn’t have my usual networks to rely on. I needed to feel and be felt again. To see and be seen, to burst into song wherever I wanted and dance like no-one was watching—not shut-off from humanity. Because hugging and kissing and dancing and singing all equate to joy. An intoxicatingly good time had by all who could explore their more primal instincts.
This, though, does not align with Japanese culture, which extols restraint over emotional release. The purpose of those karaoke rooms is to provide a hideaway for Japanese people to let off steam with a few select friends behind soundproof doors. It would be absolutely inconsiderate to subject the local populace to any display of enthusiastic enjoyment as happens in other parts of the world.
Maybe, by coming to this meeting, I was unconsciously hoping to find a kindred free spirit in the Fellowship. It would be pretty twisted to do so otherwise, much like someone using a sex offenders register to get laid! Here, I thought I’d meet someone accustomed to breaking their boundaries and pushing the limits. Alas, there were no fellow Hindu godmen, only some ex-spirited, expatriated mice of men. I wish them all well in their sombre sobriety.
- “I could get away with a wine or a few cans of beers a night,” the sharer, my compatriot [So-and-So], continued, “but when I hit the chūhai, it was game over. I was going for the highest alcoholic content, not because it was any particular, delicious flavour. It wasn’t in my nature to go for taste. I couldn’t understand why anyone would buy a can of 2 or 3%... or 4… or 5 when…”
He made a face as if to say he didn’t need to continue to inform us of the increasing alcohol percentage because he knew that we already knew…
- “…there’s a 9%.”
There was a nodding of heads and a general murmur of consent, when a thin voice quickly—so as not to be guilty of crosstalk—rattled off the fact that:
- “Chūhai is an amalgam of shōchū and highball.”
- “That’s right,” [So-and-So] acknowledged. “And I did the same with shōchū. What fucking loser would buy a 25% volume bottle when there’s a 35% one?
“My wife told me that she’d leave me if I didn’t sort myself out. I said I’d go to AA and she told me to go to hospital, that there was medication. It was like she was more ashamed of me going to AA than being an alcoholic. You never know who might see you being anonymous, right? She kept reminding me there’s medication for that kind of thing, but I thought that they’d make me sick if I drank, so I didn’t go.
“Eventually, when it looked like she was really going to leave me, I got the meds, and, to test the waters, mixed them with some booze to see if I’d get sick. But they didn’t do anything—except give me a huge red rash over my entire body… and face… and head.”
- “Spoken like a true alcoholic,” the big guy quipped knowingly, turning toward me. “My drink was Jack and Coke. Never ran out of Coke, y’know what I mean?”
Suspecting this was the punchline, my face twisted in an attempt at a smile—quite unsuccessfully.
- “I was good at getting people to drink with me. It’s OK if you’re not drinking alone, right? I even got the Mormons to go out on the piss with me,” he chortled.
- “They’re not even allowed caffeine,” the thin voice slipped in.
At that moment, I regretted noticing the absence of tea and coffee—free or otherwise—and didn’t think that it was entirely fair to be making any comments about the Mormons and their caffeine limitations.
I sat there, stony-faced, not wanting to be solely regaled with stories of drinking. All this talk of booze was giving me the goo. It was as if these sodden individuals, now fearful of entering the water, had gathered to read a book about swimming—and it was making me want to splash around.
Fortunately, the first share didn’t go on for too much longer. But with each expressed sentence, [So-and-So]’s shoulders sagged a little further. He must have realised that he could sag no more and began to wind up.
- “I don’t think I hit ‘the bottom’ like some others. I just drank each night alone—can after can—doomscrolling, not doing any of the things I used to enjoy.
“That’s all I got.”
A big sigh.
- “Thanks [So-and-So],” chimed everyone in unison, me included, feeling grateful now that he had finished.
I could see a flicker of relief on his face. For he had (no doubt, in this current bout of sharing) crossed the terrain laden with his past shame again, shedding a little more of its weight. It seemed to me like he was on a road to recovery and self-forgiveness. I’m sure his Higher Power, the former drunk Bill W., all the wayward Mormons, and the murderous Hindu saints—with their satī’d wives keeping it lit by their side—would agree.
As I reflected on my own story, contemplating the divergent paths taken by a person from the same small corner of an imagined community, which had led us both to this shared moment, I wanted to give him a hug. But before I could act on my impulse, the next share began.
- “My name’s [~], and I’m an alcoholic.”[3]
[1] A common trait of an alcoholic is the making of grand sweeping statements. Others include blaming others, hiding booze, recklessness, and blackouts.
[2] ‘First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.’ – A proverb of impending doom.
[3] The term ‘alcoholic’ is now outdated and offensive. Only alcoholics are still allowed to use it. “My name is ~, and I’m a person with an alcohol use disorder” is, apparently, more appropriate.