What does an alcoholic or drug addict look like?

The answer to the question, What does an alcoholic or drug addict look like?, is this: an alcoholic or drug addict looks like you or me, that is, anyone reading this blog entry. The vast majority of alcoholics and drug addicts are employed, with families, significant others, children, homes, cars, etc. Only a small percentage of alcoholics and drug addicts fits the old stereotype of the homeless, unemployed, perhaps dirty individual in torn clothes, maybe a trenchcoat, with bad morals, engaging in criminal behaviors, and so on. The alcoholic or addict is you or me, and uses alcohol or other drugs in the face of a pattern of adverse consequences. He or she has a disease that is treatable.