When we were growing up, all of us had dreams. Every child has heard a relative or neighbor ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Even if some of us didn’t have elaborate dreams of success, most of us dreamed of work, families, and a future of dignity and success. But no one asked, “Do you want to be an alcoholic when you grow up?”
We didn’t choose to become alcoholics, and we cannot choose to stop being alcoholics. We have the disease of alcoholism. We are not responsible for having it, but we are responsible for our recovery. Having learned that we are sick people and that there is a way for recovery, we can move away from blaming circumstances – or ourselves – and into living the solution. We didn’t choose our addiction, but we can choose our recovery.
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