Alcoholics build defenses like the Dutch build dikes. I spent the first twelve years or so of my married life assuring myself that I ‘just liked to drink.’ I also employed the world-famous Hemingway Defense. Although never clearly articulated (it would not be manly to do so), the Hemingway Defense goes something like this: as a writer, I am a very sensitive fellow, but I am also a man, and real men don’t give in to their sensitivities. Only sissy-men do that. Therefore I drink.
