With Rosy Glasses

After 38 years in AA, I got to thinking at a meeting yesterday that I am still a long way from understanding how alcoholism has affected me. I have thought that perhaps the reason we spend so much time talking about our symptom of alcoholic drinking rather than our disease of alcoholism is that it is so hard to understand or even define alcoholism without talking about drinking. The best definition of an alcoholic I know is someone who can't guarantee his behavior after taking a drink. We define the disease by its symptom—excessive drinking.