Alcohol is different from other addictive drugs. It’s a part of our culture and integral to events around professional and social situations. It’s legal and easy to purchase. But for those who can’t “live” without it, alcohol is both a blessing and a curse. Days of Wine and Roses currently at Atlantic Theater Company until July 16th encapsulates the joy and emotional horror of the drinking disease. The production is a complicated, profound, assailable to the senses, cathartic must-see.

Adam Guettel’s music and lyrics spin out the anatomy of alcoholism in the dynamic of a couple’s relationship. The couple, portrayed by the exceptional Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, are forced to confront their psychological weaknesses manifested by their alcoholism. Guided by Craig Lucas’ book, Guettel relays the extremes of euphoric addiction and its impact on the emotions of the characters with his expressionistic score and lyrics that appear to be lighthearted and lyrical but mirror undercurrents of desperation and loneliness.

Lucas nails down Joe and Kirsten’s alcohol dependent relationship dynamic with precision and poignancy. He carries it through to the point when d’Arcy James’ Joe Clay comes to the end of himself. Out of love he waits and hopes for O’Hara’s Kirsten to want to recover from alcoholism. This uncertain state promises to usher in a long, hard wait for Kirsten to admit she is ill and needs help.

Directed by Michael Greif, Days of Wine and Roses is a journey of devolution and evolution that displays the characters’ emotions of exuberance, sorrow, unforgiveness, self-discovery, redemption, self-annihilation, humiliation and love. Above all, it reflects the tragedy and joy of human experience, either confronting one’s individual consciousness or running from it, until one finally acknowledges that they must change or kill themselves.

Based on the titular 1958 teleplay by JP Miller and the 1962 Warner Bros. film, the musical is produced by special arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures. Importantly, once again it brings together the successful Lucas and Guettel team who created The Light in the Piazza. Kelli O’Hara, who sang the lead in that Broadway production, encouraged this project.

Key to understanding this musical that is set in 1950 and lightly references the cultural mores of the time (sexism and paternalism) is that Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 step program (never named) identifies alcoholism as a disease and not just a “drinking problem.”

The production frames how Joe and Kristen’s love blossoms with their drinking. It acutely underscores that the disease elevates their mood and pleasure centers (“There I Go,” “Evanesce” “As the Water Loves the Stone”) with pernicious allurement. Indeed, it is the linchpin to how they initially become involved with each other and why Kristen refuses to stay with Joe and her daughter after he combats his illness by meeting with other alcoholics to stop his self-destructive patterns.

The characters’ dynamic is emphasized when they meet at a business party on a yacht in the East River. A nondrinker, Kristen eschews alcohol. On the other hand Joe persists in getting her to be his drinking buddy. She resists him and his advances because she doesn’t like the taste of alcohol nor his smarmy, belittling, fake PR patter and persona.

It is only when she upbraids him and he apologizes for “starting off on the wrong foot” that she relents and suggests they leave. Her honesty and authenticity charm Joe and allow his better self to emerge. Together at a quiet restaurant, they discover qualities in each other that they can appreciate and adore.

As they establish a friendship, Joe introduces her to a Brandy Alexander (she loves chocolate) and she discovers her subsequent enjoyment of the buzz it gives her. This drink and others draw her to Joe as they gradually become boozy partners, who “in their continual high,” eventually marry and have a daughter, despite her father’s (the excellent Byron Jennings) disapproval and distrust of Joe. She and Joe have made a commitment to each other. Determined, O’Hara’s Kirsten will not allow her father Arensen to sway her from establishing a family with her lover and partner in drinking.

As Kirsten, Kelli O’Hara creates a complex portrayal of a woman whose drinking subterfuge eventually splits open her soul weakness after seven years of marriage and taking care of their daughter Lila (Ella Dane Morgan). Covertly, she sneaks drinks as she completes household chores and plays with Lila. O’Hara’s “Are You Blue,” “Underdeath and “First Breath” (the latter sung with Morgan’s Lila) reveal the roiling undercurrents of unhappiness and her attempts to deal with depression as the absent Joe, who works in Houston, barely keeps himself functioning at a job that requires he drink to entertain clients.

Brian d’Arcy James’ vibrant, alcohol-alluring, loving Joe allows her to take the lead, while he cleverly introduces her to a new world of drinking, fun and happiness. He draws her to him and maintains their closeness and joy, but such adventures are always fueled by alcohol. Initially, like any disease that manifests slowly, they convince themselves they are in control and live together as a successful family.

However, all is upended the seventh year of their marriage. A spectacularly destructive circumstance set off by Kirsten’s alcohol blackout destroys what they have built together (conveyed fearfully thanks to Lizzie Clachan’s sets, Ben Stanton’s lighting and Kai Harada’s sound). As their family spirals downward, their only hope of rehabilitation lies under her father’s condemning watchfulness, when they plead for his help and he gives them food, shelter and work in his greenhouse business.

The arc of their destruction is born out of their compulsions, one of which is their susceptibility to the pleasure of alcohol, the other, the belief they can ignore their desire to harm themselves and each other as addicts.

After months of sobriety, Joe breaks down, buys alcohol and offers it to Kirsten (“Evanesce” reprise), then goes completely “off the rails” (“435”) looking for a bottle he has hidden in the greenhouse. In anger at himself for his weakness and fury in not finding the bottle, he becomes rebellious. Turning against his judgmental father-in-law who has given them a chance, Joe destroys the greenhouse that Arnesen has made into a profitable business. When he finds the bottle, he drinks himself unconscious and lands on his back in the hospital on the brink of death.

Kirsten and Arnesen refuse to believe this is a disease that has no cure except through a way provided by a volunteer who is also an alcoholic, Jim Hungerford (David Jennings). Jim belongs to an association of alcoholics who understand that the only path away from the disease is through meetings, readings and the community of others who need each other’s help and camaraderie. Arensen dismisses Joe’s attempt at reconciliation and recovery. He bans Joe from his presence as an evil influence. The family are on their own in a dingy apartment as Joe allows himself to be helped by Jim while Kirsten refuses to admit she needs help and rejects Jim’s offers.

The apex of their relationship involved the ecstasy of alcohol. Kirsten appeals to Joe’s love and the remembrance of the fun they had (“Morton’s Salt Girl”) with a soft shoe in salt poured on the floor, created by Sergio Trujillo and Karla Puno Garcia. The song attempts to rekindle the magic when they enjoyed being drunk together. However, Joe’s eyes have been opened and Jim’s voice resides in his heart with the growing strength that he can conquer his illness. Sadly, Kirsten interprets this as rejection and a killing off of their love. She criticizes Joe for making her feel ashamed of herself and victimizing her with guilt and pain.

As Joe affirms his confidence that he can change to Jim in the powerful “Forgiveness” Joe and Lila cling to each other and KIrsten eventually stays with her father whose judgment, though problematic, is better than the humiliation and weakness she feels around Joe, who is passionate about healing and recovering. Now Joe’s love in sanctimony drives her away.

Days of Wine and Roses is poignant and current for our time, taking us beyond the beautiful period costumes by Dede Ayite and hair design by David Brian Brown. Kelli O’Hara is affecting and brilliant. Her operatic, rich and plaintiff voice in the concluding songs elicits our empathy. Her aloneness and sorrow at losing her partner to sobriety is intensely human and real. Her rejection of Joe’s help and love beyond the haze of alcohol is frightening.

Brian d’Arcy James is superb in reveling the nuances of determining his own confidence to overcome his addiction. Yet, he mines Joe’s attempt to balance the authenticity of being happy with his sober self with his love for Kirsten without their alcohol infusions. Together these amazing actors bring home the production leaving the audience with a confluence of feelings that will not be easily forgotten.

Kudos to the ensemble and the technical creatives and Greif’s direction and vision. With additional kudos to music director Kimberly Grigsby, Adam Guettel’s orchestrations and Jamie Lawrence’s additional orchestrations.

Days of Wine and Roses runs one hour and forty-five minutes with no intermission. For tickets and times go to the Atlantic Theater Company website https://atlantictheater.org/production/days-of-wine-and-roses/