I hate alcoholism. Everything about alcoholism I loathe. It is evil. It is toxic. It kills, robs and cheats. It has devastated my life. 

I direct my anger and rage toward the illness and not the people afflicted with it. That is not to say alcoholism is an excuse for bad behavior. It is an explanation. Alcoholics, like myself, must make amends for our wrongs – whether we were under the influence or under the influence of the “isms” that turn us into human napalm bombs – scorching and maiming the lives of the innocent who just happened to be in our way.

Even ten years after my last drink this disease still afflicts me. I will never, ever be cured. And I must never, ever forget that. I still make choices in my sobriety that are wittingly and unwittingly driven by this disease. Sometimes I watch myself do it. Like watching myself hold my hand over a flame, knowing I will get burned but doing it anyway. “Why?” I ask myself. I knew the consequences but still I continue to put my hand over the flame.

After years of taking suggestions and working a program I have come to think of my disease as an alien hibernating in my body. For days and months it sleeps. I make healthy sober decisions. My depression and bipolar are in check and I avoid situations or relationships that will disturb my serenity, sobriety depression and bipolar. Then, like that little alien in Sigourney Weaver’s chest in the movie Alien, that evil little guy unexpectedly awakens and rips through my chest, teeth-bared, writhing, thirsty and clawing at my other mental illnesses.

I am left stunned and wagging my head: “What the hell was that?” “Where did that come from?” It never ends. I must be constantly vigilant. I must test my motives, like a diabetic tests her blood. 

It has taken years, and many raging swings of a foam bat against a pillow, to separate the disease from the nasty words, neglect and embarrassment caused by my own alcoholism and the alcoholics in my life. I think of my parents’ cancer, and how easy it was to hate their cancer and not them. But I hated my father’s alcoholism – and sometimes I hated him. I wish with all my might that I had been able to separate his alcoholism from him, the father who loved me immensely – the very best he could. 

Today, as I wade through the wreckage of another alcoholic in my life, I will try to separate the disease from the person. Alcoholism is an explanation, not an excuse. I will carefully  walk that line between allowing myself to be hurt and hurting the still sick, and suffering alcoholic. And I will pray that I can see that line today and stay on it.

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Carrie Arnold (May 13, 2009)

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