I'm writing this hub because I stumbled across a notion that somehow people can treat themselves by writing a contract with themselves to drink or use some other substance ONLY in certain amounts like I don't know. I'll only have 3 drinks(why is three the magic number? why not 13?) per episode of Law and Order within a 7 day waiting period when I can drink 900 drinks in a setting again.  Come on if you are writing a CONTRACT YOU HAVE LOST CONTROL of your drinking.  Its irresponsible to say otherwise in print or elsewhere.  Alcohol affects every organ in the body if you abuse it your gonna pay a price and so will everyone around you from wives to children to employers to the people whose lives you don't even consider while driving.  I speak from only from my own experience and the people I help and help me.  There is a DIFFERENCE bewwixt truth and fact boys and girls.  If alcoholism isn't terminal why do so many people DIE from it.  It figures directly or prominantly in the lost lives every single day around the globe.  You cannot take a pill or be cured in the traditional sense.(the word cure is defined as spiritual care in the spirit of accurracy here)  You can treat it with AA and you can quit on your own(ouch!) but for real alcoholics false hope is just that false.  A contract is bull oney and feeds denial and prolongs suffering.  Alcoholism is not just a physical disease its a mental one as well(a bruised soul as it was put by a man smarter than me). I might be closing in on the bounds of good taste but don't kid yourselves I've seen enough people die as a result oF UNTREATED ALCOHOLISM.  I'm not talking about a 28 day spin dry either recovery is hard (gratifying) work.  The beauty comes out the other side of looking inward at yourself.  I had the opportunity to pass on to the next world by a very well meaning woman of the cloth very late one night.  We prayed instead.  love Michael