denial as legal sophistry: define "alcoholic"
I’m not denying anything. I’m simply asking you to define “alcoholic.” How can you ask me to attribute to myself a given term if you refuse to define the term’s meaning?
Context
Denial dressed in a personal-injury attorney's finest cross-examination: he will not identify himself as alcoholic until the term is defined to his satisfaction, reframing surrender as a signature he's too rigorous to give under semantic duress. The disease's oldest move — I'm not like that — rebuilt as an airtight legal position, which is exactly how airtight it needs the position to be.