[QUOTEI guess my question is, there HAS to be a part of her that KNOWS she has a serious problem and that she's on a path toward complete annihilation. [/QUOTE]
Denial and rationalization are major components of addiction. I knew I was powerless over alcohol and that my life was unmanageable but I never thought I was an alcoholic. I drank a magnum of wine daily for years, was a blackout drinker, had bruises, lost jobs and didn't think I was an alcoholic. Finally I came within a hair's breath of dying (overdosed in a blackout) and finally got it. I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a mental illness and it's pointless for non-alcoholics to try to figure them out using rational thinking.