We sit in a circle staring at each other because the eight o’clock meeting is starting in a few minutes. The woman chairing the meeting stands up and says, “Everyone please stand for the Al-Anon pledge.” Once everyone stands and grabs the hands of one another, we say, “Let it begin with me. When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, let the hand of Al-Anon and Alateen always be there, and – let it begin with me.” Al-Anon is a recovery program for the friends and family members of alcoholics. And the topic for the meeting tonight is “accepting when the alcoholic relapses.”

Alcoholism has run in my family for generations. All the men in my father’s family line have been alcoholics since my great-great-great-grandfather. Stories of these men have been passed down; sometimes they are used as excuses for why yet another son has become an alcoholic – that’s just how they were raised. The woman chairing the meeting, Rose, asks, “Who here would like to share about someone close to them relapsing?” 

No one raises a hand or jumps in to start the conversation. Everyone retreats back into their bubble, staring at the floor, remembering when their loved one fell off the wagon, but too scared to share. I stare at the clock, hoping that with the silence in the room I will be able to hear the ticking as the second hand makes its way around. The walls of the room are a light brown with nothing on them: plastic chairs and fifteen bodies are the only things occupying the space. The air conditioner blows directly on me and my hairs begin to stand all over my body. The woman next to me smells like she just finished smoking a cigarette and her premature wrinkle lines show me it’s a habit she has had for many years. I am trying not to focus on my father, but he is consuming my thoughts.

I start to talk, hoping what I have to say will get everyone else talking. “I remember how my father pulled me in and began screaming in my face. I could smell the orange Kool-Aid on his breath – it was Vodka. I know he always mixes vodka with Kool-Aid. His arms tightened around my shoulders and his fingernails began to dig into my skin. He lost his sobriety of three years,” I say to the group. 

When I was little, my dad made a vow to my family that he would stop drinking, but this wasn’t the first time he broke that promise. I continue, rambling to the group, because it does no good keeping these thoughts to myself. “He has relapsed six times in the past nine years. Sometimes he gets a hold of his drinking quickly, and sometimes he goes on a binge for six months before he decides to sober up again. I don’t really have anything else. Thank you.”

My family always wanted my dad to be sober, but in reality, he was just a dry drunk, which is just as bad. A dry drunk is an alcoholic who has stopped drinking but has maintained the same behavioral patterns of an alcoholic. He would lash out and yell at us the same he did when he was drunk. Instead of drinking alcohol, he would drink up to 10 cups of coffee a day: his compulsive behavior just switched to a different drug. I began calling my dad by his first name a few years ago, when I came to accept that even though he is my father, he will never be my family. When I was little, I used to ask my mom about his drinking and she would give the same response every time. “It is a disease; he can’t help it.” 

In 2012, a team of researchers looked into the potential hereditary causes of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). They found there are 11 genes in our body that are associated with AUD. These genes are linked with drinking too much and with developing compulsive behaviors. Alcohol.org quotes the study as saying that “many of those 11 pairs were also associated with neuropsychiatric disorders aside from AUD, like Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and cocaine addiction.” Although scientists found these 11 gene markers, they state that genes are responsible for only about half of the risk for developing AUD. This is because gene expression is affected by the environment you are in. I guess my mom was right. It’s a disease. 

A loud thump as someone drops their water bottle pulls me back into the meeting.  “My son is exactly like my husband. I am just so scared that he will become an alcoholic because they are so alike,” a woman says. Her hands are trembling and she is clenching onto a tissue. She begins crying and raises her hands to cover her face. After a few seconds, she lifts her head and manages to say, “I’m done.” 

The question that I have tried to block out of my mind for years begins to creep in. Am I going to become an alcoholic? When I was little, I used to watch my dad drink and stumble around the kitchen. He would be yelling at my mom or my sister and the only thing I could think is that I didn’t want to become my father. 

Children who have a parent with AUD are four times more likely to become an alcoholic themselves. Environmental factors that put you at an increased risk for alcoholism are mental health problems and a history of abuse in the household. I have struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life, along with being physically and verbally abused when I was a child. Genetics and my environment have predisposed me to be a perfect candidate for AUD.

My dad and I grew up in households that are almost identical. We both have had an abusive father who is an alcoholic. He used to tell me stories about him and his father fighting. After hours of screaming back and forth, my dad would pack his bags and leave home for weeks at a time. When I was little, I spent the majority of my childhood at my best friend’s house because most nights I would be too scared to come home.

My grandmother used to turn a blind eye
to the abuse going on in the home because
she loved her husband and believed it was “wrong to leave someone because of a disease.” My mom used to leave the house when my father was drinking because it was “too much for her to handle,” but left my sister and I there to take what she didn’t want to. 

My dad’s sister blames him for not protecting her more and not being there for her when she needed him. My sister blames me for not being there with her every night, for leaving whenever I was given the opportunity. 

A woman in the meeting begins to talk, and she is impossible to ignore. Her voice is so loud and high-pitched that it demands our attention. “Oh, honey, I was worried about that too, but my son turned out just fine. He is exactly like my husband, just without the drinking problem. That’s all, I will shut up now.” The women goes back to reading The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage. 

Although my father and I have many of the same qualities, as well as a similar childhood, there is one major difference between us. He began to drink heavily at the age of 17, but began drinking occasionally even before that. I, having just turned 17, have never had a drink of alcohol in my life. It is a choice I have made because of what I know about the disease, that it runs in my family and that I am at a greater risk for alcohol dependence. I know if I never drink alcohol, I won’t have to discover if it’s something I would ultimately become addicted to.

The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation cites a 2006 survey linking teen drinking to a lifetime alcoholism risk. The study focused on 43,000 people who suffer from alcohol dependency. Forty-seven percent of the group began drinking heavily in their teen years and had grown dependent on alcohol by the age of 21. Early drinking also puts you at a greater risk for relapsing later in the future.

I will always be at a greater risk for AUD. You don’t get to choose whether your environment and genes put you at a risk for developing this disease. There aren’t a lot of choices you get to make with this disease, just like you don’t get to choose if you have cancer or Parkinson’s. The power I have is to not start drinking in the first place. It doesn’t mean I don’t have AUD, because I don’t know if I do or not. It means I’ll never give the disease the power to take over my life. 

The woman chairing the meeting begins to talk again. “Ladies, our hour together is up. Please stand for our serenity prayer.” Everyone in the circle stands and grabs one another’s hands. In unison, everyone says, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” 

Everyone scatters from the room, but we will find our way back again next Sunday.