Why I'm Glad I'm an Alcoholic

DR. Karl Menninger has written in his recent book, "The Vital Balance," that patients who have suffered mental illness may sometimes not only get well, but actually achieve greater health than they would have attained if they had not suffered the illness. I was struck by how well his idea applied to alcoholics. "Often," he wrote, "the patient gets as well as he was, and then he continues to improve still further. He increases his productivity, he expands his life and its horizons. He develops new talents, new powers, new effectiveness. He becomes, one might say, 'weller than well.'"