I know.

My mother is an alcoholic. When I was 14, I got into my first physical fight with her over a bottle of rum. She told me that she needed it to live, and I told her if she drank it she would die (she was suffering from severe alcohol poisoning). We both had our hands on the bottle and were pulling on it, when she started scratching my hands to get me to let go. I told her, "You're hurting me, please stop, please stop," and she said, "I know."

Before that moment I had accepted my mother's apologies about the things she did when she was drunk, accepting that alcoholism is an illness and she had limited control over her actions. And to an extent I still believe that. But I no longer allow that to be an excuse for her actions, and recognize that it doesn't mean she is worthy of my forgiveness.