Step up and See the Alcoholic! He Defies Death! He Swallows Fire!

I HAVE often wondered to what extent the self-destructive elements in alcoholism are intentional. Obviously, a man does not go into a bar with the purpose of making his next stop the morgue. Yet the alcoholic's visits to bars are so destructive that it is hard to see how he can fail to recognize their nature. The alcoholic destroys his job, his marriage, his health. He may not destroy his life, but he destroys its significance. Experience does not instruct him; time doesn't cure him. If a man gets drunk once a week for forty years, he gets drunk 2,080 times. How can a man eat 2,080 doughnuts, if they don't agree with him?