Wednesday, December 10, 2008
WHAT IT'S LIKE
It is very hard to explain alcoholism and what it feels like to be an alcoholic. I mean to people who are not alcoholics. People for whom a drink or two or even more is not a problem in their life.
This article comes pretty close to doing the job.
It's the Holidays. How about just one?
I like the part where he says it gives him an excuse not to go to parties.
What he means, I think, are two things. One is that parties that are mere excuses for drinking, "partying", are pretty boring. And two, if you are not drinking, you get to see what it is like from the outside and, believe me, it is not pretty.
I don't use my alcoholism as an excuse really but, in the case of parties, it is a pretty handy one.
The fact is that I can go just about anywhere there is drinking as long as I have a good social or spiritual reason to do so. After all, I get to talk to people who are drunk and want to be sober quite often.
One other thing. This guy breaks his anonymity in AA. Now I could say that is not a good thing and that it is not done but then I would, by implication, be breaking my anonymity as well. But I think that I have already done that in the blog so what the hell?
I am doing it at the level of blog conversation. He is doing it at the level of international press. A definite no-no by Tradition.
