Some Choose Drinking

Finally, an advice column I can get behind: “Very few people are in denial about anything, when you get down it, particularly drinkers. Presumably your son is not a blithering idiot. He must know there is a strong connection between his losing his job and his girlfriend and his drinking. At the moment, however, he would just prefer to drink than not to drink. He prefers drinking to a job and he prefers drinking to his girlfriend. There is no denial going on here and to suggest there is seems rather patronising. Give him credit for making a deliberate choice. It may not be the choice you would make, it may not be a sensible choice, but it is a choice and he has made it.”