Treat the body to a sustained litany of poisoning and it will eventually assimilate that poison.  The heavy consumer of pastries becomes densely calorific, the workaholic his work, the cocaine user an allegory of cocaine:  immediate, edgy, necessitous.  Push this to its logical horizon and you have the same with the alcoholic.  Ethanol is a virus replicated by every cell in the body, sustaining itself by the formulation of a habit, need, hunger.

Like the worm parasite drives its host to water, drink will commandeer the mind of the drinker:  the drunk becomes drink.

George Best was killed by the alcohol virus and every admonishment in the world won't change this fact.  That he remained loved is a testament to the human spirit:  the refusal to believe that in addiction endeth loveliness.

It is to be hoped, now more than ever, that we might extend this same kindness to the pavement drunk.  Who actively seeks addiction?  Those annexed by the AIDS virus did not pursue it; those raddled with carcinomas did not wish for them.  If we are able to extend our empathies to a man we never met, a man partially created by TV, can we not suspend our revulsion toward a ghost on the street corner who has nowhere, nothing, no-one?

It is a fine thing to know that there is kindness in the world.  It would be a finer thing still to be a practitioner and not merely a voyeur.  Without love we are (and have) nothing:  use it or lose it.