Even as a baby, she was always sad.

I just found out that my little sister is an alcoholic.

It's so hard to even type that phrase.

My sister is an alcoholic.

No, that can't be true. My sister is afflicted with alcoholism. That sounds better. My bipolar sister has been self-medicating with alcohol. That's better, too.

There's just something so harsh, so permanent about saying, "My sister is an alcoholic."

I've never personally known an alcoholic, at least that I know of. I've read about AA and the twelve step program. I'm familiar with addictions of other sorts, and how they can warp a person. I can't envision my sister that way. My beautiful, graceful, intelligent, talented, compassionate, generous, sweet-natured sister.

Oh, you would not believe how beautiful this woman is. She came to visit us a few years ago. Although we'd talked on the phone many times, I hadn't seen her since her early teens, when I got married and moved across the country. When I saw her at the airport, walking down the stairs to the baggage claim, I didn't recognize her. Instead of my sister I saw this tall, slender blonde, with perfect features and a flawless complexion. She had a model's figure, but better. She was what models are airbrushed to look like, and I thought, "Wow. I bet she has to beat the men off."

And then she said my name, and her face clicked into focus. I could see the little girl there, her features inside the woman's like a hidden drawings picture.

The only flaw to her beauty lay in the scars on her wrists from her first suicide attempt, when she was in her late teens. Thick, flat lines sectioning her wrists, ugly symbols of the scars slicing through her mind. It broke my heart to see them.

I can't imagine my sister lying, manipulating, sneaking, hiding bottles, acting "Lost Weekend." And yet, she's been drinking since she was 14. It couldn't have gone on all those years without some of that sort of behavior.

But I can't reconcile that with the woman I know.

My sister has a drinking problem.

My sister is an alcoholic.

My sister is an alcoholic and will be all her life.

My smart, funny, loving little sister, who already has such a heavy burden to carry with her bipolar disorder, also has to carry the weight of an alcohol addiction.

My sister, who thinks she's ugly, who has tried to kill herself twice, who perseveres anyway, who is as beautiful inside as she is outside, is ... what?

Lost? Trapped? Desperate?

A liar? A manipulator? An addict who will sacrifice anything to get her next drink?

You have to understand: she says that the very first drink she had, left her feeling good, feeling happy. She always felt so awful and didn't know why. She wasn't diagnosed as being bipolar until a few years later. I can understand why she sought that feeling out again and again. She was probably addicted pretty quickly; addiction and alcoholism runs in our family, although we've stayed away from things like that for three generations now.

I don't know what to expect from her. I don't know what I can do to help her. So I'm sitting here, struggling to find the right words, tears pooling where my glasses sit on my cheekbones. And in my heart, a voice is crying out, "It's not fair, it's not fair, she shouldn't have to carry so much."

I am so afraid for her.