As Alcoholics Anonymous in Hong Kong turns 50, a long-time member describes how he hit rock bottom and was saved from ‘free fall’ drinking
- Alcoholics Anonymous will hold its 11th annual Hong Kong International Convention on October 26-27
- Hong’s Kong’s first AA meeting held at the Mariners Club in Tsim Sha Tsui in 1969 lured just two addicts – the men who had called the meeting
“They call it ‘the great remover’: it removes everything that makes you happy,” says Norm (not his real name) on the insidiousness of alcohol addiction.
Sober for 40 years now, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings he began attending in Australia in 1979, he has been a regular at Hong Kong AA meetings since 1983. Now in his sixties, he has been to AA gatherings in 35 countries, most recently in Vietnam.
When this softly spoken gentleman in corporate attire says he is a lawyer, no one doubts him. So it's hard to believe that in 1979 he was a street sleeper in Australia and at the mercy of his unquenchable thirst for alcohol. Then 28, he saw no point in living.
“I had no future, no career, no family,” he says. “You knew in your heart, you’re never going to improve, and enough self-understanding of alcohol that it’s going to get worse.”
Raised in a good family, Norm never imagined being homeless and incapable of work. “The power of alcohol overcame all my willpower and discipline,” he says.
His “free fall” drinking hampered his ability to attend university, and by the age of 23 his life orbited around alcohol. By 1979, he was ill and malnourished; finally he was admitted to hospital in Western Australia with delirium tremens (severe alcohol withdrawal, often characterised by confusion and hallucinations).