My father, who died two years ago, was an alcoholic. When I was a child and he was inebriated, I’d ask him whether he was drunk. He always said no before stumbling off to bed. I watched him go and felt I had been wrong to suspect drunkenness and even more wrong to ask.
I stood in our hallway, balanced unsteadily on a threshold between what my father said and what I knew to be true. It was very uncomfortable, deeply personal, and profoundly difficult for me to understand. My stomach churned; I developed a pre-ulcerous condition; I grew into adolescence an extremely insecure girl.
He might have believed he was neither drunk nor an alcoholic. He might have known he was both and lied because he wanted to drink as much as he pleased without interference from anyone. He did feel like his drinking was precious, a thing that was nobody’s business, something that belonged to him — lots of addicts feel this way about their addictions. I don’t know precisely what he told himself or what he believed, but I know he did not want his routines to change. He did not want his life to be upended.