"One for the Road"

   The battle with my brain. Thinking that I could win the battle with the alcoholic part of my brain. Never realizing, or admitting, or being in denial about this one basic fact: There is no one part of my brain that is alcoholic. My entire brain, my entire being, my entire life is one of alcoholism. I’m either living in my disease or I’m living in recovery.

   I cannot win the battle against alcoholism alone. Alone, despite an abundance of knowledge and experience, my brain seems to take me like a rat through a maze to that first drink. That first drug.

   And after that first, there is no other. Continuous craze at the end of that maze. One and done.   from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Chapter 43)