Sometimes I'm glad that I'm an alcoholic. A recovering alcoholic, anyway. When I'm faced with a problem, I have this amazing kit of spiritual tools that I can pick up and use to navigate through any difficulty. I have a vibrant and caring network of friends to call and supportive meetings to attend. I look at people trying to make their way in the world without these resources, and I honestly don't know how they do it. Life can be tough for even the most hardy among us.
And sometimes I'm pissed that I'm an alcoholic. It hardly seems fair to have to deal with life saddled with such a terrible handicap. I'm constantly doing battle with a squirming mass of unhealthy desires. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about them. I'm drawn to self-destructive behavior. And I take the occasional good impulse and thought and ruin it with control and obsessive over-use.
There's an old vaudeville act where a performer tries to balance a lot of spinning plates on top of tall poles. When he is setting the last plate on top of the last pole, the audience sees the first plate on the first pole wobbling slowly, about to fall. The performer rushes over and spins the pole, barely averting disaster.
This is how I feel sometimes. Mostly I'm glad that I don't have any broken plates to clean up.
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