AUDIO – DENIAL? –

Nov. 29, 2024 – I come from a family of alcoholics. Sarah, my first cousin, was the most recent to die of complications from alcoholism, at age 41. Before her, seven people in our extended family, including her father, my father and our grandfather, died from alcohol-related problems.

At one Thanksgiving, my grandfather passed out drunk into his gravy and mashed potatoes. My cousins routinely had to steady their father out the front door after Christmas dinner. My dad spent a New Year’s Eve in detox. 

My family’s drunkenness was so unbelievably sad, my college boyfriend wrote a “Twilight Zone” episode about my dad called “Kentucky Rye.” In the show, the main character kills someone while driving drunk and is punished by spending the afterlife inside the prison of his own tavern. When my dad was 32, he killed someone while driving drunk back to his own tavern. 

CONTINUE@ChicagoTribune