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I was born with a lot of advantages, living in a good location, in an upper income family. I also went to good schools and had access to many extracurricular activities such as sports, music, theatre, travel and whatever else was “in”. There were disadvantages however, both parents had illnesses, were unavailable and sometimes hostile. I learned the best thing to do was to stay out of the way. I got good grades, played all the sports, spent time with friends and mostly I stayed away from home.

I am an alcoholic and my name is Mark. I never wanted to be an alcoholic. In my twenties, I wanted my life to look like a beer ad. In my thirties and into my forties, I wanted my life to look like an article from one of the glossy food and wine magazines.

I was born with a lot of advantages, living in a good location, in an upper income family. I also went to good schools and had access to many extracurricular activities such as sports, music, theatre, travel and whatever else was “in”. There were disadvantages however, both parents had illnesses, were unavailable and sometimes hostile. I learned the best thing to do was to stay out of the way.

Addiction to work can be as insidious and destructive as an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Ironically, our society (this profession in particular) tends to hail dedication to one’s job as the ultimate in virtues. But that dedication almost cost me my marriage and my mental health. My obsession of choice was not booze, marijuana or cocaine – it was work.

I find it strange, watching the ebb and flow of humanity around me, whether at home at work or at play. Change and not disorder is the natural order of things, and it takes many of us long years before we realize this; some of us never do. We plod through life, trying to impose order on our immediate world, and we call it organizing or scheduling when what we should really be doing is riding the wave of change.