KEY POINTS:
Cleaning Up: How I gave up drinking and lived
By Tania Glyde (Serpent's Tail $35)
Tania Glyde was a walking disaster area for 23 years: a drug addict and an alcoholic, she slept with married men, junkies, women, and regularly participated in group sex with complete strangers. She suffered the resulting medical issues, various mental disorders, both real and imagined, and tried to kill herself on an annual basis.
Think Paris Hilton meets Lindsay Lohan, only bleaker, poorer, and far more real. Glyde tells her story from start to finish leaving no anecdote, no matter how depraved, unturned. What soon becomes clear is that her childhood was less than idyllic, and that she had, and still has, an unresolved dysfunctional relationship with her mother.
This, of course, led to feelings of worthlessness and set a negative template for all the relationships that followed. While Glyde fully admits that this relationship triggered her early experimentation with sex and the bottle, she has yet, it seems, to fully comprehend (or at least acknowledge) the role that it played.
Rather than blame her mum, Glyde steadfastly blames the booze for her decline into drugs, her inability to have meaningful relationships, and for her failure to hold down a job.
The flaw in the thesis is that she is convinced alcohol is the primary problem in her life. She also believes it is a gateway drug to narcotics such as heroin and cocaine, suggesting that those who enjoy a drink socially will ultimately consider Class A drugs - this is just not credible.
While alcohol undoubtedly attributed to her many failings, it is obvious it is a mere symptom of far greater issues at play. Which brings me to the real problem with recovery books: although Glyde's story offers hope for those in a similar position, it also proves that one can lead a life of drunken debauchery and survive to be fine and successful.
The message she may inadvertently be sending the young and vulnerable is that they should forget their catastrophic relationships and drink up, that it will all work out in the end. But this isn't really a "how to stop drinking" book, it's more of a scary reality check for those who are slipping further down this slope - a warts and all odyssey into the mind and life of a serious substance abuser.
At times the reader could be forgiven for thinking he or she is reading a diary penned by Irvine Welsh's Sick Boy or a lost memoir from gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It is unrelenting and brutally honest - read it if you dare.
An Imperfect Offering: Dispatches from the medical frontline
By James Orbinski (Text $34.95)
James Orbinski has dedicated his life to administering frontline medical treatment in the world's most dangerous hotspots. This book is his story of dealing with death and devastation, the horrors of war and Third World politics. But it is also a book about hope - his hope that the First World nations will stop sitting on their hands, will roll up their sleeves and offer these countries some practical help, or if not them, perhaps you.
Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Congo: not the countries that most people pencil in for a "must visit" on their next vacation. But they are the places where Orbinski has spent the majority of his adult life. He worked there as a doctor for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), before eventually becoming their president.
When he wasn't healing the sick he was setting up medical stations, organising immunisation campaigns, running feeding centres and much more. It should be no surprise that he would eventually accept a Nobel Prize on behalf of the organisation. Between each deployment, Orbinski spends short hiatuses in his native Canada.
It is here, while working emergency room shifts, that the mentally exhausted Orbinski seeks solace in the wise council of a monk, Brother Benedict. These meetings always refuel him, quell his fears, and steel his resolve - he realises that he does make a difference, even if at times it seems like a drop in the ocean.
Benedict has the Yoda-like knack of offering just the right philosophical musing to get Orbinski back on track - he soon packs his kit and heads for the airport yet again. This book is a full, no-holds-barred account of the horror experienced in the Third World.
At times, therefore, I needed to turn away as Orbinski disclosed yet another abhorrent event he had witnessed. For this he makes no apologies - this is his goal: to publish the truth and spur the reader into action.
While his cause is just and his contribution to humanity is unquestionable, the reader starts to become, if not desensitised, then somewhat overloaded with the horrendous images that are continually presented.
Perhaps Orbinski's shock and awe campaign would have been better served by retelling the very worst and most important of these events. In saying that, it is an inspiring story of one man's quest to make a better world - and you can't fault him for that.
* Steve Scott is an Auckland reviewer.
