This may have been diaried at length before, but I'd suggest that reiteration may be in order.
I just encountered a comment wherein someone suggested that Hitchens was born in "alcholistan", by which I can only presume he meant "alcoholistan". Mirth, of course, ensued.
I don't get it. We are pretty overwhelmingly PC here, aside from revelling in a certain amount of language that is not altogether ready for prime time (more accurately, prime time isn't ready for it). This is arguably a good thing: calling people "retards" and the like is puerile, at best, and generally counterproductive.
Isn't this sort of attitude to alcoholics similarly unfortunate? Follow, if you wish, over the fold.
Yup, I'm an alcoholic, or, at any rate, used to walk like one and quack like one. I've never been even remotely anonymous about it: it was pretty hard to miss before it got fixed, and, since I'm not terrifically ashamed of it and it had a fairly profound effect on my life as a whole, I don't see any point in hiding it now. Disclaimer done.
And Christopher Hitchens may be an alcoholic; I don't think we know for sure, although I may have missed the flash. The first question has to be, does it matter? He's a brilliant man who writes beautifully (in my opinion). He is currently on the wrong side of a whole lot of questions (also in my opinion). He was formerly on the "right" side of many questions, or so I gather (I'm moderately new to his work), and may still be, but the relative importance of the questions has changed.
It's also fairly clear that he's deeply unhappy and kind of an asshole, if the televised performances I've seen are any indication. I can relate, before, during, and, occasionally, after my drinking career. On the other hand, I haven't heard anything about him being found in gutters, assaulting anyone (other than verbally), or pressing his attentions on unwilling women (or, for that matter, men), most of which I managed at one time or another.
I'm not arguing that Hitchens isn't fair game for all the abuse you want to ladle on. I just don't see that it's either useful or fair for that abuse to come in the form of attacks on what is (or, in his case, may be) a clinical condition shared by millions of more or less inoffensive folks, both practicing and otherwise. I certainly understand that people who have been ill-used in one way or another by alcoholics might find it difficult to separate the condition from the individual, but that's what Al-Anon and similar organizations are for: your antipathies are YOUR problem.
In a final note: I don't intend to compare myself to Hitchens or Hitchens to anyone, but it might be useful to take a look at Churchill, a hero who was almost certainly alcoholic and who, moreover, spent much of his life being (in some cases disastrously) on the "wrong" side of assorted questions (Gallipoli, for instance). If Hitchens returns to the fold, and I submit that it's not inconceivable, do we really want to be on record as having denigrated him for a condition over which he has little, if any control? Especially considering that we would probably jeer all the more if he were to go into treatment (viz Foley, et al)?