I'm familiar with the comparison theory of diabetic/alcoholic. I always understood this analogy, but couldn't quite grasp it. A diabetic's personality doesn't really change with their illness. An alcoholic becomes an entirely different person... one you can hardly sympathize with, much less love sometimes. This was one of the hardest things for me to overcome. I KNEW my AH was a very sick man and had a terrible disease. But sometimes I just hated him for the way he would act when drunk. It's all so hard.
But I can tell you this about "choice"... at the end, there was no choice about it. My AH was really, really sick. He had reached the point where he could not even stand up, walk, function in the smallest way without a drink. We are talking infamous David Hasselhoff video drunk almost 24-7. I was waiting for this man to die. I didn't see any other way out of it. This disease had removed any choice he previously may have had. No. Definitely not. It was not a choice. Not the end stage of the disease that I witnessed. I was on my knees begging God to end it... to end his suffering... and he was suffering. And then... I witnessed a miracle.