Do You Know This Fellow?

AS I was saying, anyone can give up drinking; it's only a matter of willpower. Look at me, hardly ever touch it now and I used to be a heavy goer--thought nothing of putting away a quart before breakfast--spirits, of course. But I joined this AA affair about a year ago and found it very helpful. I know now that I don't have to blame myself for drinking, because I've got a disease. Rotten luck, isn't it, having a disease that makes me drink? Seems to me at times that I deserve a lot of sympathy, but do I get it? Not on your life. No one seems to understand that I can't help drinking when my disease is bad. Of course, I go to the AA meetings now and then--not that I ever really intend to stop drinking altogether--how could I with this disease? But I like to hear some of the members telling how they behaved when they were drinking. It helps me in a way, because it makes me realize that I'm not as bad as they were. I quite see that they have had to give it up; I suppose they'd have been dead by now if they hadn't. I'm glad I'll never get to that stage and I like to feel that I'm doing them a good turn by going to their meetings. Some of them are quite decent types you wouldn't mind meeting outside even, but most of them take it far too seriously. I mean, after all, we should try to keep a sense of proportion.