In this talk I argue that admissions of alcoholism in Japan challenge masculine gender norms of drinking and homosociality, placing Japanese men who identify as alcoholics in a struggle between medicalized conceptions of sobriety/recovery and societal expectations. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Danshukai (Sobriety Association), Japan’s largest recovery and sobriety support groups, structure individual understandings of alcoholism. Yet these structures also constrict recovery outcomes and limit membership through adherence to an ideology rooted in confession, surrender, and admissions of individual powerlessness over alcohol. The result is a community of primarily men who feel unable to openly identify as alcoholics and find themselves in a limiting social position as a result of their sobriety.

Paul Christensen is an assistant professor of anthropology in the Humanities and Social Sciences department at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. He is a cultural anthropologist of contemporary Japan and his research interests include the use of psychoactive substances and recovery from addiction. He published Japan, Alcoholism, and Masculinity: Suffering Sobriety in Tokyo with Lexington Books in 2015.