It could be ‘hope.’ In the same sense that a drunk suffering the D.T.s and shaking so badly they’re unable to lift a glass to their lips might find ‘hope’ in tying a scarf or a necktie to their drinking wrist, putting it around their neck and raising their desperately-needed drink like they would a set of blinds. ‘Hope’ to go on, at least, if not for a cure. Some drunks need to drink — can’t physically survive the physiological stress of quitting. “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip” is as much curse as epitaph.