Finding Our Way

Although winters in Wisconsin are notoriously brutal, no storm was powerful enough to come between this blind alcoholic and his disease. One afternoon during a raging blizzard, desperate for a drink, I found myself—a half-gallon of vodka in one hand and my white cane in the other—climbing over a snow bank. That’s when I had a moment of clarity. I found myself in that desperate place Dr. Silkworth describes so well in “The Doctor’s Opinion.” I knew I was an alcoholic, but I was unable to stop drinking.