I'm sorry for posting before lurking for a while, but I only found this forum because I wanted to find an explanation. I found all the posts from the day she fell of the wagon saying "This fits an alcoholic/this doesn't" but it still, after this many comics, feels like a leap to calling her that. She is solving her issue with Angus with alcohol, which is bad, but it's not the only way she solves her problems is it? She can enjoy herself with her friends without it, even though she enjoys it. She got fired from her job for using it as a coping mechanism only days after the breakup, the very first time she had ever had an alcohol related incident at Coffee of Doom. I can fully understand that having done so was bad, but for that one incident to say "clearly you have a problem," seems way off. In this case, Faye says she feels like more of a failure for drinking. Isn't that unnecessary? I've struggled with suicide and depression since I was a kid. About two years ago I had a "breakup" with the church I was immensely involved with in which I've said the exact same lines as Faye about thinking I was stronger than I was and knowing the fault was mine and not theirs. Last year I got arrested and charged with an alcohol related misdemeanor. But for all the failure I feel, I don't let myself consider drinking a failure, because it's not my only coping mechanism, and it makes it a lot easier to enjoy being around people at all, when I might wander the Pit alone in my apartment without it. I can and have (and have legally been forced to) gone many months without it without feeling like I need it - I just can't go out as much because the social anxiety is too much.
Faye wants to stop the wheel a bit. She's just been through a really hard life event, which also led to an immensely depressing feeling of failure. She needs to learn to cope with this another way, but why is coping with it the wrong way once enough to label her as something for the rest of her life? She's handled alcohol normally plenty of times, why can't she learn to do so again? I understand that addiction is a disease and that addicts can't learn to use it correctly, the question I can't get over is: Besides the past two weeks in comic time, what evidence do we have that this is an Addiction, rather than an Unfortunate Event caused by a poor choice?
Honestly, I was at lunch at work when I read this strip and started crying at the last panel because that's the worst realization when you realize that you understand, and sometimes even agree with someone you know having killed themselves. This one hits really close to home, so I can't really help but see this from her side. I need help understanding the other side.