Disease: Your addiction is much worse than that of the alcoholic! You can live without alcohol, but not without food!
Me: You can live without alcoholic foods like flour and sugar, too. You can live without flour and sugar, but not without fluids to drink!
Disease: But flour and sugar are so much more pervasive than alcohol!
Me: Are you sure about that? How many social events do you go to where there are no alcoholic beverages? That toast at midnight on New Years Eve. Wine or beer with Thanksgiving dinner. Eggnog or mulled wine for Christmas. Going out for drinks with coworkers. Going to the bar to celebrate a promotion. All of those things involve alcohol. You can't even go out to dinner without having the drink menu being offered to you.
Disease: Yeah, I guess that's true. But people really push when you don't want to eat sugar or flour foods! They don't understand that you can't have them.
Me: They push when you don't want to drink too.
Disease: So maybe I'm not so different from the alcoholic, but I certainly am different from the narcotic addict! Their fix isn't even legal!
Me: That is true, but what about prescription medicine?
Disease: What about it?
Me: Narcotic addicts are going to need aspirin, antibiotics, and cold medicine just like the rest of us. Some of these medicines they are going to need to live every much as we need food to live. They need to learn to take their medications at proper intervals just like we need to learn to take meals at proper intervals.
Disease: I don't think that's the same thing at all!
Me: Are you sure about that? Once we have taken out the alcoholic foods from our meal plans, we need to focus on taking our food at proper intervals. Like us, now that the narcotics addict has taken out the illegal narcotics from their lives, they need to focus on learning to take pharmaceuticals at proper intervals. It seems like a pretty clear connection to me!
Disease: Fine. You win for now. I'm going to sit in the corner petulantly until you aren't paying attention again. Then you better watch out, because I'm going to catch you when you least expect it!
Me: My Higher Power and I will see you then.
