It looks to me after listening to common, reading what ya'll had to say about this declared homophobic that he had a problem with alcohol and I guess He's still a fighter, and he works hard to battle his struggle with it? It also seems that this isn't the metaphorical common speaking with his rhymes. He speaks about it on each of his albums, as he does with Homosexuality, and how he hates it hands down. I don't see how that could be a metaphore or similie of any sort.Unless..." Gays are like a box of chocolates you never.... Nah!" So IN conclusion unless someone can prove me wrong about common using alcoholism as a metaphore then I'm going to assume that he is a recovering alcholic.