For one so small

There is a man who comes into the library almost every day, he wheels a huge oxygen tank, and he reeks of cigarette smoke. waking up like that, living with the need which is so strong that you have to forgo any logic or reason and let the dark side rule your life, I don't know, it's just hard to reconcile. Not that I don't recognize a self destructiveness in many of us. But I do feel, and it could be an age thing on my part, but I am willing to wrestle with whatever has kept me down ; I may lose, or run out of steam before I'm done, but I don't want to have find shoes to match a colostomy bag.
On that note, I spoke to my mother yesterday; the woman who disrupted Thanksgiving and every holiday previous albeit not as effectively, and I asked her how her recovery was going. She said that she still had some bumps and bruises, and I said I mean the outpatient counseling. "For what?" " Well", I said, "For the fact that you had toxic levels of alcohol in your system and almost died because you drank half a bottle of brandy and you weigh 90 pounds."
" Who told you all that, your dad ?"
"Um, everyone who was there, my sisters, dad, the doctors."
"I don't want to talk about that anymore"
To illustrate my "getting" what happens to people who just can't get above it, exhibit A.