Wynford Ellis Owen
You are not your attachment
You are not annalcoholic!
A person who is abstinent and no longer drinks alcohol obsessively and compulsively should no longer be describing himself or herself as “I am John or Mary (say) and I’m an alcoholic”, for that is not who or what they are.
They no longer have an attachment to alcohol, and thus it no longer defines who or what they are, and has no power anymore to decide how they think and feel.
Until they discover who really is doing the ‘living and the dying’ in their names, they could describe themselves as “I am John or Mary (say) and I’m on the journey to self-discovery”.
When they eventually do find the answer deep within themselves - and the journey of self-discovery is the only thing in the world that gives purpose to our lives and thus meaning to it, and which has eternity at its end - when they’ve travelled, past the skin, the cluster of cells, past the molecules, the atoms, and the particles, to that stillness within, where no-thing defines who or what they are, they might then describe themselves as “I am life, as it is.”
No hierarchy. No enlightenment badge. No arrival.
The truest answer - as by then, there is no one left who needs to say who they are. But if they must speak: “I am.” Then they should sit down.
Different stages call for different truths.
What matters is that the words serve life—not the other way around.
However, if you’re still thinking that you could drink safely again, then the label, alcoholic, fits. W x