Okay to Be Me

My name is Will K. and I'm an alcoholic. I'm a white, Irish Catholic man with three grandparents from County Cork, Ireland, who grew up near Chicago, and I'm a minority because I think differently. When I was two years old, my heart stopped during surgery and the resulting oxygen deprivation caused a severe disability: I lost all ability to visualize. I have no visual retention, can't think visually, and can't make visual pictures in my head. I dream in "radio." When I close my eyes, I see the backs of my eyelids and that's all. This learning disability, however, went undiagnosed for the next thirty years.