Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholics Anonymous is presented as a concrete possibility for sobriety, not as a fully described institution. Eddy G. has joined the fellowship, and Cass Chaplin is weighing whether to do the same. Their discussion places the organization within a fragile moment of shared hope, when Norma Jeane Baker(Marilyn Monroe) is pregnant and the three are contemplating the life about to change among them.

The Fellowship in the Story

During a late-summer nighttime drive, Eddy G. and Cass Chaplin are with Norma Jeane Baker(Marilyn Monroe) as they keep her pregnancy secret and imagine the approaching birth. Against that intimate, hopeful scene, Eddy G.’s membership in Alcoholics Anonymous marks an effort to address his drinking. The account gives no meeting, sponsor, or program details; it establishes the fellowship through the choice Eddy G. has already made and Cass Chaplin’s consideration of making it too.

Sobriety and the Question of Substitution

Cass Chaplin recognizes that stopping drinking would not be easy, and wonders whether he could still use drugs or whether that would amount to cheating. His hesitation makes the problem more complicated than simply deciding to stop alcohol: sobriety raises the question of what other substances would mean within that decision. Eddy G. regards the present as the right time to quit drinking, invoking his father’s repeated attempts to stop as a precedent. The passage records an intention and a deliberation, not confirmation that Cass Chaplin joins Alcoholics Anonymous or gives up either substance.

Narrative Significance

The fellowship enters the novel in a scene shaped by anticipation. A doctor has estimated that Norma Jeane Baker(Marilyn Monroe) is five weeks pregnant and expects the birth around mid-April; she is healthy, and the pregnancy has temporarily ended her menstrual bleeding and its associated pain. The friends’ hopes for a new life coincide with Eddy G.’s effort to stop drinking and Cass Chaplin’s uncertainty about following him. Alcoholics Anonymous therefore provides a modest but consequential counterpoint to the scene’s romantic elation: the group’s imagined future includes not only a child, but the possibility of change in the adults around her.