Straight from the Hiroshima train station, the public streetcar pushes into the crowded city center following a narrow channel through a blaring landscape of music, horns, and hawkers. Much unlike the corner inset of the tourist map, the actual guide keys to this area are a garish display of commercial signage that both overwhelm and yet substitute for the minimal municipal markers. Everything may not be bright and clean, but there can be no doubt that this city is fervently alive. After just a few stops, I see my destination. Now I am walking through an epitome of order where even the natural wildness of the river and the trees are tamed harmoniously with cut stone and planned lines. Children gallivant, couples bump shoulders, and teenagers carry out hidden agendas while those old enough, wise enough, or perhaps just unlucky enough ponder why and what happened here.

Near the Miyuki Bridge, there was a police box. Most of the victims who had gathered there were junior high school girls from the Hiroshima Girls Business School and the Hiroshima Junior High School No.1. They had been mobilized to evacuate buildings and they were outside when the bomb fell. Having been directly exposed to the heat rays, they were covered with blisters, the size of balls, on their backs, their faces, their shoulders and their arms. The blisters were starting to burst open and their skin hung down like rugs. Some of the children even have burns on the soles of their feet. They’d lost their shoes and run barefoot through the burning fire.

Even today, I clearly remember how the view finder was clouded over with my tears.

~ Testimony of Yoshito Matsushige cameraman for the Chugoku Newspaper

This is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial where the twisted, tattered remains of the old Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall now commonly called the Atomic Bomb Dome are preserved, an edificial testimony to the devastation of the world’s first nuclear weapon target. It is an ugly scar among 30 acres of pristine monuments dedicated to remembrance and peace; without it one could walk the grounds never realizing the absolute destruction of the first ground zero. Looking around, it seemed that many do just that… isn’t that what recovery is all about?

At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial the utter destruction, painful memories, and the slow rebuilding process have all been documented and molded into a recovery program. At least here, the lessons of the war are not forgotten. No anger, resentment, or revenge is displayed- just a message, a peaceful reminder to others that they should not repeat the mistakes of the past and suffer such dire consequences. In fact, as you exit the onsite museum you get exactly that- an audio presentation, a speaker’s meeting of the survivors like Toshiko Saeki who lived through the blast.

I could not help but think of Hiroshima as a recovery Mecca, ideal for the pilgrimage of recovering alcoholics. A vibrant city that was scoured down to the rock bottom by nuclear fires only to be built up again bigger and better under no pretenses of victimization or singular blame, just pure acceptance and a vow to honor the past, enjoy the present, and to protect the future.

If you need a spiritual reminder of what real recovery is all about, I suggest you make the trip to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

It has been a full year since I had taken a break from work not to mention the daily updates of TDA, so this vacation in Japan (minus the brief work-related foray) has been a Godsend. The original plan was to continue with daily updates of TDA along with some strategic guest posting, but the frantic pace of my trip preparations beforehand combined with multiple stops of the first half have made this too difficult.

I guess it’s time for a few days of private recovery that will consist of relaxing at natural hot springs (onsens), sampling/digging into the many dining opportunities of Fukuoka (yatais), and leisurely reading some books I brought along (the first will be The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking). No doubt I’ll slip in a post or two, but I’m weary and for the most part the next week will be all about me… resting, at peace.

Nestled in the mountains of Japan north of Tokyo is the city of Matsumoto. I rolled into to town yesterday evening via the Super Azusa with a little daylight to spare, but because of the light mist and overcast weather I ruled out a quick excursion/fact finding mission and instead went ahead and set up shop at my hotel. Once settled in, I did some internet research on restaurants in the area and came across this nicely done post from a travel blog (Kudos Paul!) which reviews in detail one of the traditional meals of Matsumoto, basashi . Basashi is raw horse. Wow.

Needless to say I immediately set out find a traditional basashi restaurant of my own and ended up at Shin-Miyoshi. They don’t have a website, but are in the same area close to the train station and the experience was very similar to that of the travel blog.

I thoroughly enjoyed the basashi, especially the horse liver served sushi style wrapped in seaweed with rice. I also tried a fish sashimi that was served along with its skewed donor- still flopping (see right side of picture). At least to my unrefined palate this sashimi was tasty but otherwise unremarkable, however the dish’s presentation and the realization I had midway through the meal that was absolutely not. While sitting there devouring that poor little fish with its dead yet still twitching body in full display… his colleagues were staring at me not three feet away in a fish tank (see left side of picture). Poor little fishies, it made me think of myself as the monster of Matsumoto!

What’s the recovery twist to this story? It’s a tenuous tie-in at best, but hey, I’m on a break! These days eating a raw fish in front of an aquarium audience is about as monstrous as I get, that’s a far cry from my past days as a guzzling Godzilla that left a far greater path of destruction.

Bon Appétit!

When it comes to traveling in recovery, it’s always smart to drop an anchor upon arriving at your destination. Whether it be a call to the family at home or spending thirty minutes blogging, importing a routine from you home base lifestyle help keeps away addictive thinking… and relapse.

Take for instance a old southern boy like myself while in Japan, definitely a fish out of water (albeit a happy fish) case. Gone are my day to day routines, familiar places and things, not to mention the added stress of trying to communicate and get around. If not careful there are two negative things that could happen, the first being that I’ll do something “stupid” because I’m breaking new ground in the old noggin and gotten out of my routine decision making practices.

That sort makes sense when thinking about the addictive brain, but the second possibility seems to happen to recovering alcoholics more often than not and is totally illogical. I call this occurrence a “New Rules” event. These events may be associated with a holiday cruise, wedding, foreign travel, or even major storms and the alcoholic becomes convinced that these new conditions temporarily exempt them from their disease. Just not true.

The names, faces, and places may have change, but I’ll always be the same alcoholic in recovery and there are no “new rules” and certainly no temporary exemptions.

(Same post, different year, new itinerary- stay tuned for TDA in Japan 2010!)

This is the last North American post and the kickoff of a two week work/leisure excursion to Japan. I still plan to update regularly, but extreme flight times and time zone changes may have my regular schedule off kilter. Keep checking often for updates, and wish me luck!

I guess it doesn’t really matter whether it was underwater nuclear testing or 24/7 intoxication that turns one into a monster, the important thing is how you act after the fact. Unlike my big green friend here that is planning a special party for Tokyo, my intention is to practice the exact same recovery program (travel-version) there as I do here in the US. The first few days of my trip to Japan will be spent meeting and traveling with Japanese businessmen, notorious for the hard drinking after-hours culture. I’m used to it, and will deal with the constant offers and queries about drinking the same way I always do; with a polite excuse- and not drink. It may be their culture, but it is my life and no job is worth drinking for.

One of my favorite actors, I’ve enjoy watching Samuel L Jackson play a drug addict, hit man (Jules Winnfield ruled), and Jedi master over the years but of course that’s not what earns him a post on TDA. I know many might scoff at my use of “earn” when it comes to being the subject of one my post, but I can think of no better word for a recovering alcoholic that has soberly navigated the caustic entertainment industry for nearly twenty years.

Instead of rehashing his bio I thought it might be better to share a few of his quotes from past interviews that I found interesting, like this one where he admits regardless of the high station he has achieved career-wise he still understands the humbling nature of the disease.

The irony is I never got to taste Cristal. Back then, Moët was my champagne of choice. Now I get sent crates of Cristal and I ain’t never tasted the stuff. Ain’t that a bitch?’… Joking aside, does he ever feel like having a drink, maybe raising a glass of champagne or two to his own extraordinary success? ‘Hell yeah, there are days when I feel like that, but I don’t do it. I ain’t the kind of guy who can have one drink. I never could. That’s what I have to remember. I never had one drink in my whole life. ~ Celebitchy.com

And then there is this one on the bastardization of “Hollywood” AA that was very revealing.

“It’s just too weird. You hear guys saying stuff like, ‘I’ve been hitting the red wine too heavy and I need to stop, but I want to keep smoking reefer (cannabis) and doing cocaine.’ In New York, rehab is for real. You sit next to guys who were IV users, guys who stole s#!, guys who sold their bodies. In Los Angeles you are sitting next to a guy who wants to go easy on the fine wine. Man, that’s a symptom of something right there.” ~ Bitten and Bound

Much like another famous alcoholic, Alice Cooper, Mr. Jackson counts golf as a major part of his recovery program. He even goes so far as to include golf breaks in his movie contracts, a smart way to break away from the rat race and “let go of the business of Hollywood”.

If you noticed, I used a picture of his latest role as Nick Fury above because I am very excited about the upcoming Iron Man 2… another tie-in to famous alcoholics. Click below to see the trailer and catch a glimpse of Samuel Jackson as General Fury.

Maybe I should consider myself lucky that rare now is the occasion I view alcohol in a positive light. The trouble drinking has caused in my own life, the trauma experienced by my family, and the constant struggle I see from others in my advocacy overwhelm any craving or thoughts of alcohol having even a slight social benefit.

It wasn’t always this way, in early sobriety I longed to be “normal”, to have a life that involved coming home from a hard day’s work to a nice cold beer. In my mind alcohol was both a staple and a panacea, as if all things goods were fermented, not earned. Long after the physical craving for alcohol vanished the mental and emotional desire remained. It was indicative of my pathetic life as an alcoholic; that I still desired to drink despite the damage it had caused- mainly because it was the only reward my brain even recognized! Maybe my rather jaded view of drinking these days is the sign of a healthy recovery, knowing the risks and dependable negative results by far outweigh any benefits. It’s as if those pages of my mind have been stripped and replaced with a healthier, more wholesome edition… ergo, a new term for TDA: The J Geils Effect(Get it?).

The well known era of prohibition brought about by the 18th amendment was named The Noble Experiment by President Hoover, but the government also started a less noble initiative during this historic time that for the most part bypassed historic scrutiny.

Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people… Although mostly forgotten today, the “chemist’s war of Prohibition” remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was “our national experiment in extermination.” ~ Slate Magazine

Now left out of this story is the fact that those producing stealing and then producing “renatured” alcohol are the true killers here. So is the fact that most knew the risks involved in drinking bootleg whiskey during prohibition (or any era) and drank it despite the danger. I’m not condoning this desperate past action of the federal government caused by passing laws that they had no plan, ability much less the will to enforce, just commenting from a different perspective.

Its interesting history and a good read regardless of how one interprets it… enjoy it and have a safe and sober weekend!

Not since writing a post on Blow, the powdered energy drink marketed as if it were cocaine complete “with a mirror and a credit card to cut the stuff, all packaged in a Styrofoam container made to look like a brick of cocaine” have I seen a more distasteful product than Drank, the “anti-energy drink”.

Drank, the anti-energy drink sold at convenience stores, is generating concern among Dallas-area mental health experts who say it’s made to resemble popular illegal homemade cough syrup concoctions known as “purple drank.” ~ Dallas Morning News

I’m not asking to make Drank or Blow illegal or punish those that use such disreputable marketing techniques, but hopefully most distribution channels will have the class not to carry such asinine products.

Just in case your still in the dark about what real purple drank is I’ve reposted a TDA story on the topic:

Q: What’s worse than an isolated bunch of fools drinking prescription cough syrup with a chaser?

A: The much larger group of fools that follow suit under the false assumption that emulating this ignorance is somehow empowering.

Hopefully the popularity of Purple Drank is beginning to wane considering recent deaths and admissions of addiction by industry promoters. Of course it’s nothing new, drugs and alcohol have always seemed to be part of the music scene’s mystique and similar behavior occurring from fan adoration often follow suit.

For me it was Paul Stanley’s of Kiss fame screaming promotion of “al-kee-hol” that was a directive to drink and “be cool”, but the idea of drinking cocktail cough syrup just seems a little bit lame from my viewpoint. Regardless of how stupid this may sound the drink has become such a part of the culture that even commercial knock-offs are trying to horn in on the popularity with a legal version of the purple potion.

I think that one of the lures of this concoction is that because it is consumed as a cocktail, that people misinterpret its narcotic nature and addiction potential. Even those who have openly admitted their problem seem oblivious to the danger. Of course in rap star Lil Wayne’s case, it also seems that utter stupidity plays a role in this matter.

“I saw a doctor – he gave me pills, told me, ‘This is what you take to get off it,’” Wayne said. “I never tried them. If them b***hes work, then I probably gotta start. Other than that, it’s gonna be hard. What a n*gga told me to do is start lessening my amount. So what I do, I tell motherf*ckers as to pour it for me instead of me pouring it…I be patient.’” As told to Vibe Magazine (May 2008 Issue) ~ 411Mania

No matter the culture, genre, or timeframe though, it seems drugs and alcohol remain stylish but stupid and tragically hip.

The ARM-ME blog brought to my attention today that the first draft of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V) has been released. This is the guide published by the American Psychiatric Association that provides standard criteria and terminology to be used by doctors to diagnosis their patients… and much, much more. It will legitimize conditions and qualify them for insurance payment while confusing other issues leading to denial of coverage. It will help in reducing the stigma of certain conditions and stir up controversies that will lead to new discrimination. It will also be used as a perverted support in cases of convenient victimization and the rationalization of unacceptable behavior. It can be a milestone for improving the quality of life for thousands and yet will surely lead to over-diagnosing, over-prescribing, and the repercussions that follow.

Relative to TDA, there will be significant changes in the way the new DSM categorizes addiction and dependence. I find it mildly disturbing that the article referenced by the ARM-ME blog has a few comments by Stanton Peele, who it seems over the years has juggled the use of these terms solely on the basis of what will best further his career or increase book proceeds. An anonymous responder to a recent Stanton Peele article in Psychology Today raises this very point.

My point remains that Mr Peele holds himself out as a medical authority and is advising people with active alcohol problems that they alone can control the issue. He tells them what they want to hear. The sad fact is that those most at risk are also the most likely to heed his advice. Mr. Peele knowingly blurs the line between problem drinker and alcoholic and then provides generic unfounded advice… Mr Peele makes his living pushing his moderation mantra. If you look at his other web sites you will see he is pushing his own recovery program for people to pay him.

Good thing the final draft will not be complete until 2013 and only after a thorough peer review. In the end though, I doubt seriously there will ever be a good definition for addiction since it is such an encompassing affliction that very few professionals ever look beyond their specialty or discipline to get the bigger picture.