Book: Double Double by Martha Grimes and Ken Grimes

A Dual Memoir of Alcoholism

Martha Grimes is the well known writer of mysteries and Ken is her grown son. They write alternating chapters about their respective lives, pre and post alcohol.  The book would be of interest to anyone who knows, who lives with, who is, or who is wondering if he is an alcoholic. Which would include 99% of Americans, I think.

Ken respects and endorses Alcoholics Anonymous while Martha went to a clinic. Both are now clean and sober and have been for years....or at least they were when this book was published. Alcohol always lurks and beckons, especially for Martha. Her honesty about her life with and after alcohol is refreshing. She misses drinking every single day. She writes as though she had a love affair with alcohol...a tender, sweet, comforting, almost passionate love affair, and on reflection, this might not be the best book to read if one is looking for a testimonial on the improved quality of life sans alcohol.

Martha: "I remember a movie in which the daughter of wealthy parents had come for dinner. There was no alcohol served because the father was a recovering alcoholic. Afterward, the girl and her mother were talking about the father, and the mother said ruefully that she had liked him better when he was drinking. That was a shocking admission, she knew, about herself. But he had lost a spark, something that made their lives more enjoyable. Since he'd stopped drinking, he was sad a lot of the time. In my clinic, I think they would come down hard on this woman; they'd call her an enabler. But she wasn't: She had never done anything to undermine her husband's earnest effort to stay sober. I thought she was being devastatingly honest."

For Martha, the enemy is not alcohol but the inability to regulate intake..."drinking uncontrollably every day..."

She says, "There's no recipe for ending an addiction. Unless you consider this one: Here is a glass. It has vodka in it. Do not pick it up."

"The blessed first drink that goes down like fire stolen from the gods...the deliverance, the relief from the sharp-edged day, from party anxiety, from boredom outside and in-, from the empty night."

Ken: "At the age of seventeen, all I wanted to do was drink pints and pints of Guinness...I loved Guinness more than anything....The dark, rich, bitter beer that slid down my throat like ice cream. Guinness was a spiritual experience."

"I graduated with the worst hangover I ever had in my life and was desperate for the ceremony to be over and for them [parents and relatives] to leave so I could start partying again."

The book will help the reader understand the problem.