When he described his recent sobriety, my wall of denial crumbled. The next day I asked him to take me to a 12-step meeting
When I left Ireland in 1993, I followed a route already well-worn by other Irish immigrants, carrying two suitcases, $500 and a one-way ticket to New York City. I had been raised, one of nine children, on a housing estate just outside Dublin. The daily backdrop was one of rising unemployment and the escalating violence in Northern Ireland. I was 20 years old. I had a job in a clothes shop in town. On the bus to work, I jotted down poems and daydreamed about a different life. When the opportunity presented itself in the form of a visa lottery, I made a break and bolted.
Back then, family history and the history of Ireland were of little interest to me. Instead, there was kinship among the immigrant kids of the East Village. We worked in the cafes and bars, met up after our shifts and talked into the night over cigarettes and wine. With anonymity came an intoxicating sense of freedom – and other intoxicants, too.
