Fatal Chronic Progressive

Alcoholism is a disease It is progressive, chronic, and fatal. Unchecked, it results in insanity, death, or a permanent bed in an institutional setting. We can recover but we can never shrug off the disease. It requires daily medication. Incredibly, most of us just don't take the medicine. Apparently, progressive, chronic, and fatal doesn't sound that bad.

Alcoholism is a like a pool with no shallow end. All of the ladders have been removed and the sides are slick and slippery and sharply angled. Alcoholics are tossed into this pool, fully clothed, in winter coats and heavy work boots. Our pockets are full of lead weights. If we want to recover we have to start swimming. We can't take a couple of days off unless we want to sink like rocks. There is no way to weasel out of our predicament despite the fact that we are highly skilled weasels. No amount of weaseling is going to drain that pool.

Recovered alcoholics are standing on the edge of the pool, throwing us rafts and safety lines and inner tubes, shouting instructions: "Take off the boots! Take OFF THE BOOTS!" We swallow some more water, nearly going under, and think: "Who does that ass think he is, anyway, talking to me like that. Doesn't he know who I am?"

Take off the boots.