It can be a lot. Christmas, Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, etc, were for a long time excuses for my family to drink to excess. As a teenager who finally had their

It can be a lot. Christmas, Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, etc, were for a long time excuses for my family to drink to excess. As a teenager who finally had their driver’s license, I remember being proud of finally being old enough to drive my drunk parents home. The problem is that it catches up with you. And it is easy to overlook when some people develop a serious drinking problem. My mother became a serious several-liters-of-vodka-a-day drunk. It was profoundly noticeable toward the tail end. It all stopped when the heavy vomiting (from the drinking) triggered a brain bleed and she had a stroke. She was, for months, in a coma, and then for many more months, unable to speak or move. To an outsider, she now appears normal, but to those who know her well, she is not. Her memories are usually confabulated. She cannot perform ordinary tasks (like cooking), and she is frail. Most importantly, the spark that made her funny and interesting is gone. Drinking destroyed it. Sadly, this is a pattern I saw repeated in numerous family members. But it never really impacted me until it was my own mother. I am not anti-drinking. But this experience removed almost all of the pleasure of drinking for me. The irony is that I really do miss those joyous, booze-fueled holidays. I have a lot of complicated emotions about it, but I wouldn’t go back.