I used to think that alcoholics do not, cannot love anyone or anything except their bottle, but I was wrong. They can and do love deeply, only not in the way that we need to be loved. It's important to remember that alcoholism is a progressive disease that not only has a physical and emotional hold on the addicts in our lives, but it harms them mentally as well by attacking the frontal lobe of their brain, thus damaging their ability to think clearly and act logically.
If it were cancer eating away at their brains we'd be full of compassion for them. But when it's alcohol eating away at their brains, we struggle to find compassion. It's not just the addicts who have wandered far from God, we've done so, too, by losing our ability to feel true compassion for those less fortunate than us.
After losing their loved one to the disease of alcoholism, a wise member of this forum once asked, did the alcoholic fail us or did we, as a society, fail the alcoholic? I think the answer is the latter.
Tonight I say a prayer for all those who are struggling with alcoholism--the addicts, their family, their friends, and their loved ones and I ask God to help us always treat the people we love with compassion.