Whew .... and wow... The various personal backgrounds shared here is amazing --- and humbling. As Tusk stated earlier, most of us have been touched by addiction, in some way. My dad died when I was 7 because of his lifestyle (general carousing including drinking and smoking [tobacco], but most especially smoking [he'd been military man -- his original enlistment had ended a day before the U.S became engaged in WWII-- and he, of course, re-enlisted and then went on to serve during the Korean War]).
The day he died he'd been helping a neighbor during the last haying season of the year, when the heart attack that killed him began -- maybe. Years later, I learned that he'd decided to/announced that he was quitting smoking that day, which makes me think that morning he was already experiencing some signals -- but didn't know what it was.
The various stories related just show that we're all human and vulnerable.
