The Alcoholic Genre

Please confine your discussions to your problems with alcohol. This is always suggested, and sometimes mentioned by way of complaint. The complaint I heard was happily ignored, happily because it was made in a group that wanders far and wide in its discussions and rarely fails to raise one’s awareness that, even in far-flung places, there are signposts pointing back to drink and others pointing to continued sobriety.

There’s work and the absence of it, relationships broken, mended or long gone, the wolf at the door, the coof at the office, and the dogs people used to bark at. Some people speak without profanity; others just can’t fucking help themselves. A few have remarkable timing and could fill comedy clubs if anonymity wasn’t an issue; some shed heavy burdens with light remarks; and occasionally someone will appear to be reading aloud from a poorly transcribed copy of Beowulf. What people don’t talk about and the way people never talk would be two short lists.

Someone recently said that he felt he was listening to the same thing over and over. He said it several times, as though to emphasize his point and mine. It’s partly true because of the way some people talk, but more so on account of the way some people listen.

Sometimes there are certain expectations of content, form, and maybe even technique. But, as is appropriate for a condition that lasts and outlasts the four seasons, you can catch elements of the archetypal myths of each: comedy (sometimes you have to laugh); romance (getting lost in the forest); tragedy (the goat stories, heavy-handed character flaws); and satire (our former vaunted worth withering in the heat of – Heaven forfend! – some newly acquired moral purpose).

Given the mix, though, perhaps the most descriptive fit would be tragicomedy: for here are the laughs and diversions and there the looming calamity. But maybe the catastrophe doesn’t come to pass. A surprising, improbable reversal of fortune has occurred. And maybe that’s why we’re here, to remind others and to be reminded ourselves of this happy fact and that there’s no need, anymore, to exit pursued by a bear.

Unless Beowulf starts up again.