All I wanted was for it to stop, for her to simply cease being what she was. I didn’t have a concept of alcoholism as a disease, and with a child’s sad and frightening simplicity, I figured that she simply could stop if she wanted to. She probably could stop for me. Why would someone do something that they knew was bad for them, that made them different than their ideal self? Only a child would oversimplify this; only a child could see reality so clearly, as this is, honestly, the problem every alcoholic must face eventually: The only solution is the simplest, hardest thing in the world. Stop.