Asian, Anonymous

Today marks the first day of Asian Pacific Heritage Month and to honor it I’d like to share more on my experience as a sober Asian American Woman in the modern world.

I shared about a month ago how my family was being impacted by the rising anti-Asian sentiment in this country and I was blown away by the love and support I received. I struggled a lot with the decision of whether or not to share specific experiences. In part, because I still struggle with my identity. Being half Japanese, I’m not always easily identified as such. Sometimes I can blend in as white, and I worried that calling attention to the parts of me that were being discriminated against was somehow minimizing the experience of those who cannot hide behind racial ambiguity.

But when I cracked the door on my experience I saw that there was room for understanding and care. Ultimately, I’m starting this conversation because I think it’s critical to raise awareness and to echo the stories we’ve already heard.

Right now in the United States Asian Americans are facing a level of discrimination that hasn’t been seen since the 1940s, and I think it’s important that every occurrence of this is brought into the light and scrutinized. With all that said, here’s my experience and why I feel sharing it is so important.

The most overt racism I’ve experienced over this past year was especially hurtful to me because it happened in what is supposed to be a safe space. As I’ve recently opened up about, I am in recovery and I relapsed at the beginning of the pandemic last year. It was the start of a painful six-month struggle with my alcoholism, at the end of which I found myself in treatment in my new home state of Pennsylvania.

For those who have never been to treatment before, it’s hard to describe, and I’ll be attempting to do so in other posts, but for now let me just describe it as a high-stakes camp focused on your opportunity to save your life from an evil disease that wants you dead. We’ll leave it at that (for now.) Days are filled with intensive group and individual therapy, informative lectures and what I like to describe as “mandatory fun,” a classic example of which is recovery Jeopardy.

As I’ve said, my road to recovery has been long and complicated. I am also a giant nerd. As a result, I play a fierce game of recovery Jeopardy

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So there I was, in the safety of a my rehab cocoon playing recovery Jeopardy when from across the room I heard someone say “of course that team’s winning, they have the Asian.”

The Asian. My heart dropped.

“That’s f*d up,” I barked defensively, not sure where the comment had come from. It was like someone had reached in and shattered my bubble of safety. Here I was, in a room of alcoholics, with whom I was bonding and building strength through shared experience and someone had just announced to everyone my difference.

After my team decidedly won the game a fellow patient came up to me and admitted that he was the one who had made the comment. He apologized in a way that shrugged off any ownership, saying that he had become frustrated because here I was exemplifying a level of expertise that seems to come so easily to Asians. His explanation and expectation of forgiveness pained me.

I did not accept his apology. I gave him credit for having the courage to apologize to me directly, but explained that it was not my job to make him feel better for his actions. It was also not my responsibility to explain to him why I wasn’t accepting his apology. In that moment I felt no obligation to spend any time educating him, for I was too angry at what his comment meant for me and my identity, I felt violated and exposed, like my ethnicity had somehow been a secret and he’d ripped open the curtain.

Asian Americans aren’t a common group among addicts and alcoholics. In fact, over the course of my journey I have met exactly one single Asian in recovery besides myself. I’m used to being the only Asian woman in my support groups and often times, I forget my difference. The unity of the support program I participate in is built of shared experience, prioritizes principals over personalities and welcomes all.

Moreover, your addiction does not give a shit what color you are.

Prior to that incident in treatment, the only time my race has ever come up in my recovery has been when I have chosen to highlight it, and I often don’t for the very reason that I don’t want to isolate myself. I suffer from terminal uniqueness and the last thing this sick alcoholic needs is an opportunity to differentiate herself from the pack. I need the herd.

But occasionally I find myself bringing it up because I need to point it out. Because as an Asian American Woman in recovery I really do feel all alone sometimes.

Why are there so few Asian Americans in recovery? It’s a fantastic question and one that I’ve pondered since I started this journey. Let me stop here and state that I am not an expert in this field, nor do I pretend to be. I come armed to this table only with personal experiences and some research, so please don’t take my word for it, if you’re curious, do some digging of your own.

Whenever this question has come up, I’ve been alarmed by the confusion and misinformation that’s being operated on. I have a member of the mental health community who I trust wholeheartedly and who I believe represents everything progressive, good and understanding about the world. In the safety of a one-on-one conversation we were having about the topic of Asians in recovery she asked me “can’t most Asians not drink? Because of the allergy?” Here is a woman with multiple degrees, an expert in her field with access to countless medical journals, and she has to turn to me to ask about Asian glow.

For those of you who don’t know “Asian glow,” let me bring in an academic explanation from Yale Scientific. Explaining the phenomenon, Colin Lu writes:

“ Some Asians have a natural condition that discourages them from drinking alcohol. About 50 percent of the Japanese, Korean, and Northeastern Chinese population experience a phenomenon called the Alcohol Flush Reaction (AFR), or what is commonly known as “Asian glow.”

I find the beginning of Lu's paper particularly interesting, because it implies that this natural condition "discourages drinking." Hearing out the aforementioned mental health scholar, she explained to me that her understanding was that many Asian could not process alcohol, which yes is scientifically true. But I have difficulty believing that Asian glow somehow exempts Asian Americans from alcoholism. Again, this is just from my experience, but I do not buy that because Asians can’t drink in safety they’re not drinking. The very definition of an alcoholic is someone who cannot drink in safety and does it anyway.

My theory for why there aren’t more Asian Americans in recovery? It’s the same reason that Asian Americans rarely open up about any mental health challenges: pride.

In my Asian American household, pride was essential. As much as parts of the movie Mulan blatantly generalizes and glosses over Asian culture, something Disney accurately portrayed is the premium placed on pride in Asian cultures. I remember watching it growing up and relating so deeply to Mulan. If given the choice between bringing dishonor to my family or entering a decidedly dangerous war I’d pick the war in a heartbeat.

In looking to find evidence of what I experienced growing up beyond a Disney movie, I came across this phenomenal article by Naveen Kumar, which looks at Asian Mental health through the lens of the current “crisis” being faced today.

In it, Kumar writes: “Asian Americans face particular barriers to accessing appropriate mental healthcare.”

“This is due partly to reticence when it comes to talking about mental health in many Asian cultures and partly to a lack of competency among mental health professionals to address the specific needs of Asian Americans.”

Kumar goes on to further breakdown these barriers, introducing academic experts and data that showing that Asian Americans are less likely to pursue mental health help. Furthermore, Kumar demonstrates, when they seek help they aren’t often able to find quality doctors who understand the cultural barriers to mental health

treatment.

I’ve come up against this time and time again. Throughout my sobriety journey I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in some of the best rehabilitation programs on the East Coast. I’ve had unbelievable doctors including the amazing therapist I have now. But none of them have been Asian, and they haven’t been able to truly understand what it’s like to be an Asian American woman in recovery.

It’s a big reason why I want to be so vocal about my experience. Because somewhere out there I’m sure there’s another young Asian woman who walks into support groups and feels alone surrounded by white faces. And while so many of us might be afraid to talk about it, I’m sure there are plenty of second and third generation Asian Americans who grew up in homes where problems are buried, not discussed. We need to hear from each other to know that it’s okay to speak up.

It’s like the awareness the Asian American Community is raising right now by sharing their experiences with anti-Asian sentiment. If no one had stepped up and said “this is happening to me,” the Asian American Community would be suffering in silence. It’s the reason I just spent over 1,500 words laying all of this out.

If I stay quiet, people won’t know that Asians struggle with alcoholism as well, and more devastatingly they never find out that we can recover too.