Trying to describe the process of becoming an alcoholic is like trying to describe air. It's too big and mysterious and pervasive to be defined. Alcohol is everywhere in your life, omnipresent, and you're both aware and unaware of it almost all the time, all you know is you'd die without it, and there is no simple reason why this happens, no single moment, no physiological event that pushes a heavy drinker across a concrete line into alcoholism. It's a slow, gradual, insidious, elusive becoming.
Interpretation
Understanding alcoholism is complex, as it envelops one's life without clear reasons or events.
This quote by Caroline Knapp highlights the intricacies of alcoholism, illustrating it as a pervasive and elusive condition that cannot be easily articulated. The gradual nature of becoming an alcoholic is emphasized, showing that it is not driven by a singular moment or decision but rather a slow process that integrates deeply into one's existence, often remaining unnoticed until significantly impactful.
In practice
During a support group meeting, this quote could illustrate the complex nature of addiction.
Dogs possess a quality that's rare among humans -- the ability to make you feel valued just by being you -- and it was something of a miracle to me to be on the receiving end of all that acceptance. The dog didn't care what I looked like, or what I did for a living, or what a train wreck of a life I'd led before I got her, or what we did from day to day. She just wanted to be with me, and that awareness gave me a singular sensation of delight.
Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.
I savor life. When you have anything that threatens life... it prods you into stepping back and really appreciating the value of life and taking from it what you can.
Some pain is simply the normal grief of human existence. That is pain that I try to make room for. I honor my grief.
For I dance And drink and sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength and breath And the want Of thought is death Then am I A happy fly If I live Or if I die
Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.
How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh.
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