M1 Hanoi Home Group, Don N's

Meeting 1: Tuesday June 1st
Don N's house, Hanoi

We Hanoian AA members are lucky to have a small but dedicated group here in Hanoi. We meet on six days a week, in the evenings and daytime. Tuesday meetings are in a house on the way to the airport, so it was great for me to catch the meeting before heading off for my 10:50 p.m. flight. Early on in my sobriety I met an Irish guy who had slipped during a flight. It was a lesson I've never forgot. It's easy to say yes to the cute flight attendants offering you complimentary beer, wine and cocktails. Hitting the meeting was good and necessary preparation for the long journe ahead.

Tonight was a special occasion. For the week prior to my departure I'd been spending time with a former colleague who was having a hard time. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't stay off the vodka. He has a lot on his plate right now, taking care of his family and trying to find work. He'd tried and failed to make a new life for himself in Thailand, and was now back in Hanoi and hitting bottom.

I knew only too well the inexplicable and baffling obsession that made it seem a good idea to sneak out into the night at 2 in the morning in order to hit the bottle and crawl back into that comforting and deadly cocoon of oblivion in which all problems momentarily disappear, only to reappear even worse the morning after.

It had been a long, hard week for him, but at last tonight he was able to receive that precious first 24-hour chip. It was a pity I had to leave, but I know that the group in Hanoi are there for him. Throughout my trip, he'll be in my thoughts and prayers. If he can make it through, a wonderful and fulfilling life awaits.

It's amazing how quickly the AA programme takes effect. Those first few wobbly days of the shakes and the sweats soon pass, and then suddenly out of the gloom and misery comes a new sense of hope like the dawning of a bright new beautiful morning.

I'm really grateful to J. His getting back in touch was just the reminder I needed of how sick I was 12 years ago, before I came into the programme. Though the 3-month trip that lies ahead is an exciting prospect, it'll be my longest separation from my beloved wife Keiko. I don't do well on my own. I shall need the programme and meetings to keep me straight and sane.

My last air flight in my drinking days was a nightmare. I was heading back to the U.K. to be with my dad as he succumbed to the prostate cancer that was killing him. Shamefully, for this alcoholic it provided the perfect excuse to go on a 24-hour bender of self-pity and alcohol abuse. I was already drunk when I checked in. When the attendant told me it was a no-smoking flight I got abusive. I was lucky they let me on the plane.

Once in the air, I became drunker and more abusive. Luckily, they didn't land and kick me off in Siberia. I drank all the way from Heathrow airport to my home town. I arrived in time for a session in the pubs in clubs. Somehow or other I made it to my parents' house. I woke up the next morning with a bad headache, churning guts and with a bottle of vodka and two uneaten kebabs next to me.

In the nightmare days that followed, as my dad passed away and through the funeral, I was useless to everyone. All the arrangements fell on my poor sister's shoulders. I never once spared a thought for her, or how she felt as the dad she adored passed away. I was blinded by selfishness.

It's always good for us alcoholics to be given a reminder of just how sick we were before AA threw us a lifeline. I truly am grateful for the reminder that that last week in Hanoi gave me of just how cunnung, baffling and powerful alcohol is.

So thanks to all the Hanoi members. I literally could not have survived my time in Hanoi without them.

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www.aahanoi.com/

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