“He took a long drink, then grimaced. “I do not have a drinking problem,” he announced, his voice needlessly loud. “I have a Churchillian relationship with alcohol: I can crack jokes and govern England and do anything I want to do. Except not drink.”

“To this day, I am amazed at how many of my problems - most of which had nothing to do with drinking, I believed - have become manageable or have simply disappeared since I quit drinking.”

“Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?” “Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.”

“I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.”

“Psf. I'm not an alcoholic. An alcoholic needs a drink. Look here," I explained raising my next shot to her. "I already have one. S therefore, I do not need one. Which makes me not an alcoholic.”

“‘Ozzy, why do you drink so much? What’s the point?’The right answer to that question was: because I’m an alcoholic; because I have an addictive personality; because whatever I do, I do it addictively. But I didn’t know any of that back then.”