Too true, Naemanson. For those last few years of my duet partnership, I tried almost everything prescribed to bring home to my partner that he had a problem. Nobody was better at denying it, to himself and everyone else. He could handle it. He could quit any time. He just wanted to have a good time (this one usually turned into an attack of some kind on whoever was trying to get him to slow it down). It got so very wearing...

If I'd quit him long before, he might still be getting sloshed, but I wouldn't be carrying around the feeling that I was somehow an enabler. Hindsight, though, tells me that at least some alcoholics might just be better at facing it if more people would "give up on them" and tell them, "I really care about you, but I'm not trained to handle this. So call me again when you're ready to face life and get off the booze." There's a point when being nice is just feeding the disease.

Sarah