Addictions are coping skills. Addictions are borne out of anger, anxiety and depression. Anger anxiety and depression are the result of unprocessed emotional trauma. I'll tell you a little story.
My grandma lived in San Francisco and was a switchboard operator for Bell telephone company. When my dad was around 4 or 5 her husband left her for another woman and left them pretty penniless. This was in the early 50's. Unable to afford to keep my dad and his sister, they were placed in a catholic orphanage. My grandma was raped in an alley as she got off the bus after work. Her assailant stepped on her ankle and broke it. She was a closet vodka drinker and never let anyone help her in the kitchen when we were over for holiday dinners....I wonder why. Lol
My father once described for me the abuse he suffered at that home. They had specific potty times and if you didn't use them it was your problem. If you wet yourself you were beaten. My dad said he remembered sneaking a teddy bear from the play room into his bed and was caught with it and beaten. I also think that he was molested there but of that I am not sure. When my dad was 18 he went to california to find his dad. He went to his dads door and knocked. When the man came to the door and found out it was his son, he slammed the door in his face.
I only knew my grandma until I was about 15 or 16. My last memory of her is her dying in a hospital bed. She had been sober for 3 years. I still have a serenity prayer plaque that she gave my dad with a personal note congratulating him on his sobriety. My dad quit drinking too but later started again. I don't know how much my dad had to drink when he hit the deer on his motorcycle. They never said that alcohol was a factor.
With all that said, my grandma and my dad didn't drink because they had some alcoholic gene...they drank because of emotional trauma that they never really processed thru.....and really...who can blame them? I know I've forgiven my dad for the crap he put on me. He didn't know how to cope with his pain. There weren't too many resources or as much knowledge as there is now about why people become addicted to things. Telling someone they are a drunkard and condemning them like some are prone to do is just further abuse on these poor people. I am ashamed that a christian would be so hateful to a hurting soul by yelling....SINNER, DRUNKARD or whatever. Those people need love, understanding and a friend with an ability to see past the outward condition of the man or woman who drinks to cope, and help them draw out the poison of emotional trauma that causes them to drink in the first place. We don't know what a person has been thru until we get to know them and we don't get to know them by calling them names and dehumanizing them with religious rhetoric. If I saw a person speaking to another human being like some do on here to people who may be hurting, I'd be as angry as Jesus was when he flipped over tables in the temple. Alcoholism is the outward expression of a soul that has been damaged. It is an attempt to find some peace from those demons. Quitting drinking and putting on a religious front doesn't make the demons go away....and I submit that religiosity is a far more cruel demon than alcohol.