Buk and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) (1 Viewer)

I haven't read nearly as much of buk as most people here. I was just wondering if theres ever an instance of him going to an AA meeting (either by choice or coercion)? Most drunks do entertain the idea of sobriety a few times in life. It would be great to get his take on AA.
 
Buk didn't drink for 1 year, late 80ties, except the day his daughter got married.

Quote: "what the hell"

Cheers.
 
i think i recall he mentioned drunk visits at the AA together with Jane.
not sure where that is. could be stories AND poems.
 
No AA for Buk

I'm about 100% positive he never went or even ever entertained the notion of AA. His attitude I think to drinking was that it was a choice. I even doubt he considered himself an "alcoholic" in the "disease" model of that word.
He says in the Taylor Hackford film, in the scene with Linda King, that it got him up, it got him out. How most people just stay with the daily, never get high, never get ecstatic. I wonder too when he says "some people never go crazy..what horrible lives they must lead" whether both madness and alcohol were for him means of transcendence, of ecstasy, as sexual love can be. Bukowski is about trying to find the sacred in life.
Now I think it is possible to find these ecstatic states without recourse to "mind expanding" substances. [For example, Buk got high on great music--for example Stravinsky, Sibelius, Mahler, Bach..].
I love a writer as much as I love Bukowski who is his COMPLETE OPPOSITE in every way--Vladimir Nabokov. And Nabokov I think got high by studying butterflies, by writing very weird and complex and lovely books, by hiking in the Swiss mountains. The guy never got drunk in his life and he was just high on being a genius. But Buk had a bit of a more difficult childhood...:eek:
 
I haven't read nearly as much of buk as most people here. I was just wondering if theres ever an instance of him going to an AA meeting (either by choice or coercion)? Most drunks do entertain the idea of sobriety a few times in life. It would be great to get his take on AA.


Can't see Buk sitting in an AA meeting, but it begs the question....did he have AAA for that BMW?:D
 
I love a writer as much as I love Bukowski who is his COMPLETE OPPOSITE in every way--Vladimir Nabokov. And Nabokov I think got high by studying butterflies, by writing very weird and complex and lovely books, by hiking in the Swiss mountains.

I love his "The Defence", partly based on Aljekhin.
 
Bukowski "scoffed" at AA people saying they drank as much as him when he was cutting down for a bit.

If it works for you it's not a problem and it worked for him, for most of us it certainly wouldn't work.

I can see where he was coming from but you should do what works for you, he certainly did.
 
...I wonder too when he says "some people never go crazy..what horrible lives they must lead" whether both madness and alcohol were for him means of transcendence, of ecstasy, as sexual love can be. Bukowski is about trying to find the sacred in life. ...

I think you're onto something there. He wanted to shake things up, even if it meant trouble.
 

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