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.
It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
If you live life with the intention of making a difference in others' lives, your life will be full not empty.
She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window. 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.
We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.
If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
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