The progression of alcoholism, if the alcoholic continues to drink, is always insanity or death. Alcoholics on this journey get to know this, yet many continue to drink.
Is this sane behaviour? Are they making sane choices? If their choices are not sane, are they really choices or has the alcoholism taken over?
On Fridays I sometime go to an institutional meeting. This place is for end stage alcoholics who continue to make the choice to drink. Our society doesn't consider this sane or safe behaviour so they are committed for treatment, I use the term loosely, for a period of 6 months under the alcoholism and drug dependency act. They have no choice in this.
Most of them are the walking dead. They refuse to accept they have any problem, they deny any responsibility, even though they are near the end, their friends, family and authorities have gone to desperate lengths to save them, they still want to drink and will do so at the first opportunity.
They have been told their next stop will be the Korsakovs ward or the graveyard, and I have seen many make the transition. It's like watching the light die as the torch battery goes flat.
And people say it's merely a matter of choice? I spent time in a Korsakovs ward in my late teens. It was meant to scare me sober. I continued to drink. Not because I wasn't scared, but because I could not stop. Very nearly met the same fate, and I can assure you, it was not a matter of choice.