“Handles to Hang on to Our Sobriety”

Abstract

Commonplace books—collections of edifying prose and poetry—have been recognized as an important tool of self-fashioning from the early modern period onward. This article examines the practice of commonplace making by men in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, where the form becomes a unique expression of the “surrendered masculinity” on which recovery from addiction hinges. The author argues that the embrace of this nontraditional gender identity by the predominately White male population of AA suggests that the category of hegemonic masculinity may be destabilized by men’s spiritual investments.