Sometimes alcohol can work miracles. It can turn an awkward interaction into a party between two friends. It can turn a quiet, anxious person into an avid talker. It can also turn a self-motivated business woman into a wreck, who must watch her life spiral out of control. Even so, many of these changelings are unwilling to admit the most crucial transformation which alcohol offers, and that is into an alcoholic. For Caroline Knapp, this struggle to see her transformation clearly is the route of her struggles, as is outlined in her memoir “Drinking: A Love Story”. In her story, Knapp discusses how alcohol had been a constant staple in her life from when she was very young and then learning how it can enter not only one’s body, but also one’s mind in seemingly positive ways. Largely, Knapp uses alcohol as a way to distance and define her relationship with her father, who also abused alcohol to escape emotionally.
More times than not, alcoholics in families are like four-leaf clovers, if one can be found, many more are still hidden. Although not overly obvious to Knapp throughout most of her life, this second four-leaf clover was none other than her father. She remembers learning that alcohol had magical properties from a young age by watching her father drink. He’d come home after a long day and drink a “martini, perhaps pour the second one. He’d begin to loosen up” (Knapp 36). Knapp’s father is only one of the many Americans who drinks heavily in front of their children, a 2012 study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports, “more than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems” (Substance). The effect of constant contact to alcohol consumption for children is translatable to alcohol consumption later in life, “early exposure to an alcohol abuser can also increase the child’s propensity to have a problematic relationship with alcohol” (Watkins). This effect is seen directly in Knapp’s life, as it is her father who allows, even encourages, her to drink at an early age: “my father introduced me to martinis and Spanish sherry and single- alt Scotch” (Knapp 37). Knapp describes one particular incident the summer after she graduated high school where an awkward dinner with her father turned into a grand moment of bonding after a glass of wine, she describes how “it allowed me to respond to my father in a new way, to align myself with him without fear” (Knapp 38). Part of Knapp’s craving for alcohol comes from a place deep inside herself which reminds her of childhood comfort, of remembering her emotionally-distant father becoming more approachable after a couple drinks. By drinking together, the father and daughter pair come to a place of comfortable familiarity which neither can find while sober. Knapp pairs the ease and comfort which alcohol provides with her relationship to her father.
When Knapp’s father fell ill with a brain tumor, she fell farther into her alcoholism. The Alcohol Rehab Guide explains how those who drink can quickly become an alcoholic while in mourning, because when a person is “drinking for a specific reason, be it grief, depression, or even anger, they can easily fall down a rabbit hole of abuse” (“Alcohol and Grief”). This guide also discusses how alcohol can perpetuate grief as it,” functions as a depressant in the body, slowing the central nervous system and brain” (“Alcohol and Grief”). This is true for Knapp as her father’s “illness opened a well of fear in [her] chest that felt bottomless and [she] drank to fill it, to escape it, to numb it” (Knapp 49). No one is prepared for a parent’s death, especially when the child and parent share a complicated relationship such as Knapp and her father. Many people look for themselves in their parents, wondering what they may inherit in personality. Sadly, Knapp may have inherited the ability to function through alcoholism, finding comfort at the bottom of a glass.
As discussed above, Knapp’s father had a stony, distant personality which was softened immensely by alcohol. Knapp understood that her father had a yearning for connection with her, “a deeply emotional one, edged with discomfort, as though he understood that his efforts…were failing” (Knapp 33). Knapp’s father looked to her as a way to understand and save himself, which resulted in codependency. By using Knapp, her father created high expectations of connection which neither had the emotional maturity to fulfill, and so they turned to drinking. This dysfunction resulted that when the two were drinking together a bridge formed which would dissolve once they were sober. As drinking had provided a bridge to her father, she also used it as a crutch as he was slipping farther into his illness. Only after Knapp seeks treatment for alcoholism does she understands that her father also suffered from alcoholism, an old family friend confides it had taken her “father a long time to admit to his alcoholism and even longer to say it out loud – until he was dying” (Knapp 234). Finally, with the clarity away from drinking, Knapp has the capacity to look inside of herself and cries in “a mixture of sadness and guilt” only now being able to understand that by getting sober she was “leaving him behind in some way…toward something better” (Knapp 235). Once Knapp had stopped drinking, she did lose parts of her father, but she gained better insights into their relationship.
When her father did finally succumb to the tumor which wormed its way through his brain, Knapp used alcohol to distance herself from the mix of emotions surrounding his death. She admits, “drinking always helped me cry” (Knapp 205) and “I’d drink to numb those tears: drown the feelings, keep the sadness at bay” (Knapp 205). What Knapp is describing to the reader is the two different ways an alcoholic can escape themselves and their feelings with alcohol. One way is to escape through drowning in her emotions, being underwater as she is describing does not allow for moments of peace or clarity to understand what is being felt and why. Usually crying does help ease emotions, but with no reflection there is no progress. The second way Knapp grieves to escape follows a straightforward path. Although, shutting down those feelings does not make them go away, they continue unchecked.
Through her sobriety, Knapp finally has the means to explore herself and her relationship with her father as an alcoholic. By examining how alcohol has roots in insecurity, inhibitions, and family, the full effect of it is found in Knapp’s story. Her struggle for a stable relationship with her father bleeds into his death and exasperates the issue even more and it takes many lows for Knapp to realize she wasn’t only searching for him in a wine glass, she was searching for herself. For much of her life, Knapp runs away from the question of self in order to feel comfortable and safe, but this false security is most dangerous for her, as it is for any alcoholic. Knapp learned these ways to cope through her father. Only by realizing she was an alcoholic and seeking help Knapp has the room to take a closer look at her relationship with her. Only then does the realization come of just how complex their relationship was. Only then can she move past those learned behaviors.
Work’s Cited
Abbey, A, et al. “The Relationship between Reasons for Drinking Alcohol and Alcohol Consumption: an Interactional Approach.” Addictive Behaviors, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1993, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4493891/.
“Alcohol and Grief, Coming to Terms with Loss - AlcoholRehabGuide.” Alcohol Rehab Guide, https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/resources/dual-diagnosis/alcohol-and-grief/.
Knapp, Caroline. Drinking: a Love Story. Dial Press / Bantam Dell, 2005.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Data Spotlight: More than 7 Million Children Live with a Parent with Alcohol Problems, 2012. Available at: http://media.samhsa.gov/data/spotlight/Spot061ChildrenOfAlcoholics2012.pdf. Accessed 11/20/19.
Vederhus John-Kåre, et al. “How Do Psychological Characteristics of Family Members Affected by Substance Use Influence Quality of Life?” Quality of Life Research : An International Journal of Quality of Life Aspects of Treatment, Care and Rehabilitation - an Official Journal of the International Society of Quality of Life Research, vol. 28, no. 8, 2019, pp. 2161–2170., doi:10.1007/s11136-019-02169-x.
Watkins, Meredith. “What Are the Problems & Effects of Alcoholism on Families & Marriages.” American Addiction Centers, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/family-marital-problems.