Poor me...Pour me a drink.

Last night, after a very random series of events, I happened to meet a recovering alcoholic who is 35 years sober (I'll call her "Sarah" for simplicty's sake).

I used to think that it was unfair that a person was labeled an alcoholic for life even if they only drank heavily or abused alcohol for a year (or a few years, in this woman's case), but now I see that it's not a matter of fairness; the lifelong label "alcoholic" is a matter of honesty and an abandonment of wishful thinking. If you were ever an alcoholic, you still are; the only difference is that recovering alcoholics are alcoholics without booze. Add booze to the mix and it becomes abundantly clear why they still wear that badge.

One of my friends asked Sarah "Do you ever miss it? Is it hard?"

"You know," she said, "no, it isn't. Every once in awhile I walk into a restaurant and think to myself, 'Boy, it would be nice to have a glass of wine with my meal like everyone else.' But I never had a glass of wine, I had 10."

That's when she said, "I lived by the motto: Poor me...Pour me a drink." And it dawned on me that every alcoholic I know lives by the same motto. Sarah recited, verbatim, some of the things my very own friends have said to me, when she told me the excuses she used to make - most notoriously "if you had my life, you'd drink too." She was the first person to remind me that she had money, two beautiful children, and a loving husband and family.

Sarah believes she has a disease. She believes that she inherited the genes for alcoholism from some of her numerous alcoholic relatives. She said "My husband used to say to me, 'Why are you doing this?' That's not how it works. You wouldn't ask a cancer patient why they have cancer."

This is where we disagree. Yes, alcoholism is a disease, but not like cancer. Most cancer patients have absolutely no choice in their disease (the exception would be people who develop cancer after making repeated bad lifestyle choices - smoking, drinking - but even then, genetics play a role). Alcoholics, on the other hand, know - and I don't care what anyone says - they know, at some point or another that they have a drinking problem - that the alcohol controls them and they depend on the alcohol. Most alcoholics realize this long (years and years) before they get help. It is unfair and deceptive to lump alcoholics and cancer patients together.

Let me put it this way, if a cancer patient took a pill everyday, and the doctors said "this pill you are taking is causing your cancer. If you stopped taking this pill, you'd get better," then you bet your ass people would ask cancer patients "why are you doing this?" too.

A couple of weeks ago I went into the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine. As I was checking out, I noticed the man behind me setting a bottle of cheap bourbon on the counter- plastic, gallon-size, bottom-of-the-barrel, couldn't have cost more than $11. He had the shakes. His face was bloated and his skin was pocked, wrinkled, and scarred. His nose was bulbous and red. He wore dirty khaki pants and a red plaid shirt. He looked 70, but I'd guess he was probably closer to 50. He had a look of pain on his face as he pushed his bottle to the cashier. She smiled at him nonchalantly as she read his total and bagged his bottle.

I thought to myself "how can you live with yourself?" and I wasn't thinking about the man, I was thinking about the cashier.

It's illegal for doctors to give an obvious drug addict pills, so why is it legal for a clerk in a liquor store to sell an alcoholic booze? I know there are obvious answers here, but if you think about it, it's really not that different. A doctor would refuse to prescribe medication based on the patient's behavior and demeanor - I guess he could run a tox screen, but I doubt that happens in these situations. Doctors make a judgement call based on experience. Why is it that supplying an addict with their drug of choice is illegal in most situations, but commonplace in others?

I'm not condemning that clerk, or any clerk, nor am I condemning the tens of thousands of bartenders who knowingly and unknowingly pour drinks for alcoholics each year. I am pointing out that we live in a society riddled with not only addiction, but hypocrisy.

I know prohibition is a bad idea. I know prohibition will never work. But come on, the U.S. is so tough on drugs based on this notion that they are bad for the people who take them, and bad for the people who are affected by the people who take them. What about alcohol?

Throughout my years, and the comings and goings of various friends of mine, I have always known people who were touched by alcoholism, whether personally or in their immediate family. I've also known numerous people related to, or affected by other types of drug abuse (my freshman year of college the girl who lived across the hall from me dropped out after developing a heroin addiction).

That number would be exponentially larger if I counted non-nuclear family members and friends. The times when we've talked about it, the conversations were almost always preceeded by tears and painful memories or recountings of interactions with their drunk loved one. Alcoholics cause the people around them infinite pain. They harm and harden good and loving people. They ruin the lives of their families and friends. And they don't care.

Most alcoholics will insist that they do care, but alcoholics are constant liars. Sarah repeated the old adage, "How can you tell if an alcohlic is lying? Her lips are moving." And that's the truth. She admitted, and who knows how long it took her to admit this, that when she was drinking she didn't care about anything. She didn't care about her husband or her children. She admitted she didn't care about her children. I imagine that's the case for most alcoholics. Many arguments end with the impassioned cry "You wouldn't do this if you cared about me!" to the addict. Make some minor modifications and that statement becomes the question and the answer: You do this, and you don't care about me.

Once you come to this realization, dealing with the addict becomes easier, but not any less hard (and I realize this statement is a contradiction, but if you've had any experience with an addict, you know what I mean).

I asked Sarah how she finally decided to seek help, and she told me that her sister came to visit (her family lived across the country) right after she (Sarah) had been prescribed valium for her "nerves" (she used air quotes when she recounted this). Later that day, after Sarah drank some vodka (she doesn't know how much) and took a valium, her sister found her in a coma. Sarah said that she wasn't trying to kill herself, but at that point she really didn't care if she died.

After that, her sister told her parents and her husband and they all got together to try to help her. When she was faced with losing her children, she finally pulled herself together enough to go to rehab. She explained that it wasn't so much the thought of losing her kids that motivated her, but the thought of what people would say about her if she lost her kids. I guess when love isn't enough, societal judgement is.

Not too long ago, I was riding in the car with someone (I don't remember who) who said "I don't think I could be friends with someone who uses cocaine." I laughed immediately and said "You are friends with people who use cocaine, and you don't know it." She eyed me suspiciously.

"No, not me."
"Who?"
"I don't know, but I guarentee you know at least one person who uses cocaine either recreationally or abusively. You probably know lots of them."

The same is true with alcoholics, except multiply that number by 10. Or more realistically, 50.

I know this sounds dire, but this will never get better until people start recognizing the reality of the situation. If you see someone with a problem, don't ignore it. Say something. Say something to that person, or their parents, or their friends, or their spouse. Admitting there is a problem really is the first step.

I think about how different Sarah's life could have been if her sister had visited a year or two earlier. She might not have cerosis. She might not have osteoporosis. She might not have lost her marriage of 8 years (and her relationship with her husband of 16 years). I'm glad she told me her story, and in honor of her courage and her efforts to right those wrongs she committed so many years ago, but still haunt her, I promise that I will not keep quiet any longer.