We decide how we want to live and we decide what we want from our lives. But that's only possible once we've made a conscious commitment to stop being human piñatas -- stop being victims -- and truly take responsibility for our lives.

I know what can await them, if they truly find recovery, because I have been blessed to witness the profound hero's journey that it can be. But first, like all addicts, they have to ask for help.

Over my 25 years of experience as a psychologist, I gradually came to realize that drinking may be one of the most common yet least talked about causes of marital conflict. Unfortunately, in the couples I've worked with this issue is often swept under the carpet.

It's been 24 years since I used vodka like aspirin -- to numb my pain. In fact, I've been sober 22 years more than I drank, since I quit before I was old enough to buy the stuff. So my brain should be used to ordering Perrier and shaking my head politely as the Merlot bottle comes my way.

I used to get really angry with the alcoholics who relapsed. I'd see them shirking their responsibilities just as my father had shirked his. But, as I got older, I began to see that no shirking was really involved. Alcoholism is a powerful foe.

Health and mental health practitioners need not see an alcoholic behind every symptom in order to recognize that there are indeed prodromal signs that may be evident years before a patient's drinking might be "diagnosable."

We all know that if you drink a lot you become an alcoholic and can't function. This is -- if not God's will and written in the stars, the next best thing -- biologically and genetically determined, irrefutable, and irreversible.

In 1991, Tommy Rosen got sober and found the path of 12-step recovery. That freedom from addiction required several key elements: a spiritual path, community support, yoga, meditation, and a conscious diet.

I had just quit my office job in an attempt to "find myself." I was unemployed and openly drunk in the middle of the day. This poem, "I Think I'm an Alcoholic," was an attempt at understanding, and making others understand, my precarious position.