Now I have killed the rum. The rum is slain. No longer do I feel anxiety about when I will next have the chance to drink. The joy of drinking began to dissipate when I was noticing that the joy was an illusion, and that with each pint, I merely anticipated the next. But then dread set in, as I knew that I would not be as good company after my 2nd or third. So the only way I could keep up my spirits was to made myself worse! For me I need better, not worse! And so it is, that I have defeated the rum, for I have found it out to be my enemy. You talk of the rum as if it is a virtue, alcoholics are virtuous, quoth thee! Compared to poker players and drug addicts you point out. OK, but where is the control group? Where is the group that is NOT fucked up? Are you comparing yourself to that group? The positive aspect of the whole matter is that the absence of something is more of something else. You label rum as a disease, and you are probably right about that, but what about programming your mind against it? What are you doing that is positive? When I read your words, they celebrate the rum as a wonderful institution, you portray alchoholics as heroic fascinating people. EGO EGO EGO! They are not! Alcoholics are shit. They beat up their wives, they destroy their kids, they are living in a negative pool of drivel and bile. I cannot share your passion for alcohol. I used to be that way, but I had to take apart my mind and reassemble it again to take out the ego, the romance of the rum. The good associations of the rum from my youth are dead memories and drinking but a nostalgia! So that's it, no more! Those days are behind me now. And nothing you can say can convince me to take up the rum!

You are saying that I have never won the battle. But matey, battles do get won! Smokers quit. Drinkers quit. If someone quits smoking, people don't sneer, oh, you're just temporarily quitting! People do give up stuff. You see, in your case, you can't bear the thought of never getting pissed ever again. I have spent the last 3 years teaching myself, zen-buddhist style, that if I never get drunk again, then I have not lost anything! It's like giving up a lover, a woman you love. It just takes time to convince yourself that you love her not. Sooner or later, you will fall out of love!

It takes a sacrifice to abandon the mistress of rum, that is true. But it's not a matter of stopping drinking, it is a matter of stopping justifying the habit mentally. The mental masturbation over how you are incurable, how you are slave to some addiction. You are not slave to the rum at all. You are slave to the idea of rum, of the platonic concept of the rum. You said it yourself, rum makes you feel, no pun wished for, spiritual! Exactly, and it's hard to give that up aint it? Because then you become unspiritual don't cha? Except you said it yourself, you lose spirituality anyway!