Have you been in the position to choose, lifelong drunk (because when you say alcoholic I assume you mean a practicing alcoholic, not a sober one) or recovery? Because I’m going to mayyybe have to challenge you on that one there. There comes a point where a person will do whatever is asked of them, no matter how difficult, to be relieved of the obsession to drink. And at that point, the hard way is the easy way because to drink is to die.

You sure do make a TON of assumptions in this piece. First of all, there is a distinction between mental illnesses, like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; personality disorders, like antisocial personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder; and traumatic brain injury symptoms like PTSD or lack of impulse control.

Now, I’m not going to go very in-depth here, so it’s possible that some of my explanation won’t have a high-level example and you might have to make some generalizations, but this is just so you’ll get the picture, in regards to the brain.

Mental illness like major depressive disorder and bipolar are chemically rooted and can often be managed quite effectively with psychotropic medications. Unfortunately, these medications have side effects of their own that a person with the illness may decide are too extreme to make taking the meds worth the trouble. Or the meds make the person feel so normal, that the normal reaction is to think you feel fine, and don’t need the medicine anymore. Except that you do. Even if you take responsibility for your brain chemistry imbalances like a muthafucker.

Personality disorders are generally more of a nurture and less of a nature thing (this is what i meant by you making generalizations. this is mostly true, there are exceptions but I don’t have all day…), and while they can sometimes be moderated with psych meds, people who suffer these disorders are characteristically unable to see the problem in the mirror, and rarely seek help.

TBI, or traumatic brain injury, can occur from a physical event (a car accident, for instance), or from repetitive, prolonged exposure to mentally and emotionally traumatic stimuli to such a degree that the actual brain is changed, physically, from fluctuating hormone levels, etc. Depending on where the brain is injured, symptoms vary. but what results from repetitive exposure to trauma over time is called complex PTSD and drugs can help alleviate the symptoms, and EMDR can help even more, but ultimately, this is an issue that strikes the sufferer from behind when he’s not paying attention, making it very hard to “be responsible” for it’s manifestation ruining my plans.

You should maybe do some research. Just a suggestion.