Typical think piece - someone's inability to manage their life while partaking in a substance is not a personal fault, not something that they alone must bear a

Typical think piece - someone's inability to manage their life while partaking in a substance is not a personal fault, not something that they alone must bear and abstain from, but a problem with society and the responsibility of others to fix. I'm an alcoholic. Looking at my expense tracking from the first five years out of college and in a developer role shows that I spent more money on booze in those five years than I did on gasoline for my car and groceries. There was not a time when I was out of work (or when I needed to drive - amazingly even alcoholic me wouldn't cross that line) that I wasn't drinking some craft beer or a single malt whiskey or smoking a cigar and playing poker with some bourbon. Unsurprisingly, my personal life was a gigantic mess while I shambled along at my job as a functional alcoholic. I eventually completely gave up alcohol due to the problems I experienced, and I went through about a three year phase that this writer describes, where I ascribed to other people the reason why I personally drank. What I found through that was that I personally drank for unhealthy reasons. When I was unhappy or things were rough, I'd pop open a beer. After a hard day at work I would drain half a bottle of bourbon. Over a long Thanksgiving meal with my overbearing and judgemental family I'd down a bottle of wine myself. I was personally using alcohol to cope with my problems instead of facing them. That does not mean that everybody else in the world does so. Several of my friends can have one beer with dinner and a scotch and soda on poker nights and be perfectly fine and sober to drive home. Most of the people I know can moderate their drinking, except for the other alcoholics in my group of friends who have given up alcohol. So perhaps the writer of this piece should introspect instead of project and fix the issues in their life that are bothering them and learn to let others make mistakes and learn from them instead of taking part in the "silent four-way exchange of dismay, irritation, and bitchiness" they were so proud of.