Two rooms

Two Rooms is a collection of stories comprised of both fiction and creative nonfiction. The use of nonfiction and fiction in this project is a meditation on my recovery as an alcoholic. The two rooms discussed in this project refer to the use of fiction and nonfiction but are used as a metaphor for the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. When I talk about being “inside the rooms,” I am referring to my life in recovery where I use the mask of fiction to write about experiences in recovery. Tradition twelve of Alcoholics Anonymous states, “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions.” This tradition emphasizes the importance of being anonymous in recovery. Using fiction allows me to push characters to limits that I might not have gone to nor want to, but my experience as an alcoholic gives me an insight as to how characters might act in a given situation. Creative nonfiction, my life outside of the rooms, is an opportunity for me as a writer to delve into aspects of my life that have been an influence on my drinking. In the process of this project, I found my mother’s death to be a considerable influence on my creative nonfiction as well as my drinking. Through fiction and nonfiction writing, I am better able to focus on my life as an alcoholic in recovery.