Loners and Internationalists: On the High Seas and at Home

While our ship was in port in Hong Kong in 1984, a sober shipmate took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was in a cathedral, and there were about seven of us. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember how happy everyone looked. The next night I was drunk in Kowloon. As we returned to our ship in the wallah wallah ( a small "bumboat"), a sober shipmate said, "We may not get you sober right now, but we've (expletive deleted) up your drinking." How right he was. I was in and out; the famous revolving door was going like fan blades. I would have been much better off grabbing the AA lifeline from the get-go. But I had to get beat up a little more, I guess.