“Under The Influence: Paying the price of my father's booze” is an essay that was written by Scott Russell Sanders to describe his father drinking habit. In this essay, the author has used both comparisons and allegories to explain how his father’s drinking habit was very serious and how it affected his whole family. In addition, the essay describe explores the connection between excessive drinking and excessive working and compares the two. To start with, the author has talked about father’s extreme habit of alcohol drinking, stressing on the different changes his father showed every time he had a drink. Besides his father’s addiction in drinking, Sander has also talked about his lovely daughter who she also considers as an addict as well. …show more content…
In that passage, Sander says “the main reason why am using the past tense not because my father never quit drinking, it’s because my father already quit living” (p. 71). On other words, Sander uses this example to show how his father’s alcoholism behavior ruined his life while in his childhood. According to Sanders, his father could not live without being alcohol. Sander shows us how life became enjoyable to him and his family. Apart from comparison and metaphors, the author has also used figurative language in describing his father’s habit. Sander successfully demonstrates to his audience the horror that can be caused if a family has an alcoholic father. On the other hand, Sander’s daughter was always working and never took time off. Sander does not say if her daughter loved her work so much that she could not leave it, but he uses the contradiction between her and his father to show the two worlds that he lived in. at one point, Sander shows how alcoholism made his father to become dishonest. In the essay, Sander says “When my father is drunk he is very dishonest, deceitful, and pathetic” (p.
Her dad, who is irresponsible, demands for her to give him money do that he can buy beer. Jeannette argues, “I’ve got bills piling up,”... I heard my voice growing shrill, but I couldn’t control it. “I’ve got kids to feed” (Walls 210). • Alcoholism has devastating impacts on behavior and the lives of others - For Jeannette, since her childhood, her dad returning drunk, late in the night was a regular occurrence: “He came home in such a drunken fury that Mom usually hid while we kids tried to calm him down” (Walls 112).
The Author starts his essay describing how much his father’s irresistible drinking and then he uses past tense to describe he never stopped drinking but he quit living (Sanders 36). Then in his enduring haunting memory, he describes how he enters in a garage to look at his alcoholic father’s bottles hidden in paper bags. The way his mother
Most people would probably associate college age men and women with drinking alcohol in excessive amounts. This is a typical stereotype of college students. It seems that a lot of college students just assume the responsibility of drinking because they are college students. This seems to be the norm. Thomas Vander Ven, in his book Getting Wasted, studied college students on three different campuses in order to decipher the mystery behind the reason college students tend to drink (Vander Ven 2011).
The main character, Leni is constantly surrounded by it, being both her mother and father often rely on drinking and smoking to get away from their problems, ultimately causing Leni to feel both alone and depressed. Substance abuse is the act of relying on a substances to deal with ones problems. When Ernt was stressed out he would drink to escape but drinking would only bring out the worst in him. “Dad stood there, his eyes bright with alcohol and rage” (Hannah 182). Ernt is relying on alcohol to get away from the scarring memories of the vietnam war.
Throughout my whole life, my father has been an alcoholic. There have been times when he has tried to quit, but it never lasted for more than a few months. His addiction has brought on stressful times for my family. Some days we did not know where he was or if he was coming home. Although my father’s addiction might not have made the best childhood, he did show me the kind of person I did not want to be.
Her father, Rex, has a severe alcohol addiction that significantly impacts the family’s lifestyle. Rex’s alcoholism leads to emotional instability and frequent, hostile aggression towards his family. One way alcoholism affected Rex, was by causing emotional instability. The article, “Symptoms and help for Alcohol Problems” by author Elisabeth
Alcoholism is a significant problem in American society. About 20 million people in the United States abuse alcohol and out of that number, around 10 million are addicted to alcohol and considered an alcoholic ("Alcoholism" 1). In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette's father, Rex, shows signs of being an alcoholic. His disease puts a lot of strain on the family and relationships within the family and eventually, Jeannette's father dies from heart failure, a common disease caused by alcoholism. Rex Walls can be identified as an alcoholic father by most of the six identifiers of an alcoholic from the American Addiction Center.
Did Jeannette portray her parents in a negative or positive way? “In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a little bit of a drinking situation. There was what Mom called Dad’s ‘beer phase.’ We could all handle that. Dad drove fast and sang really loud, and locks of his hair fell into his face and life was a little bit scary but still a lot of fun.”
Like in the case study selected, Gustavo has a problem with addiction. Solving this problem needs the involvement of Gustavo’s relationships, and not the individual’s inner psyche like the traditional therapy methods do. This approach is based on the belief that a change in a person’s behaviour affects the family members and the family functions over time (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2009). The case study presented is a perfect example illustrating this theory.
His mother warned him about his fate if he continued to drink, like his own late father, but he felt that a few drinks would not cause any issues. Little did he know that a few drinks would turn into endless nights of drinking, and the biggest tragedy of his life; the death of his daughter. His daughter, worried sick about him, went to look for him at the tavern so they
Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders “Under the Influence” by Scott Russell Sanders is a poignant essay relaying Sander’s struggles with his father’s alcoholism. Sanders’ essay is revealing in ways that statistics and studies on alcoholism cannot possibly contain. Sanders’ essay is like a catalog of the devastating emotional effects of his father’s alcoholism. In his essay, Sanders convincingly counteracts misconceptions about alcoholism and supports the argument that alcoholism is more like a disease rather than the common misconceptions of alcoholism.
& nbsp ; I told myself I wouldn 't cry Hothouse Flower level of crazy, but I totally just did. First while I was reading the book, second while I was writing this review and third during the moment this conclusion prompted me to reevaluate my life.
“Under the Influence” by Scott Russel Sanders is a personal essay about Sanders’ father and specifically, his alcoholism. As the title of the essay suggests, his father is under the influence of alcohol, but this essay will argue that Scott Sanders is under the influence of his father. Sanders uses the structure of the personal essay to reflect on how his childhood was negatively impacted by his father, and to reveal to himself how his childhood affects his present adulthood. Sanders writes that “the story ends” for his father but that “the story continues” for his siblings, his mother, and most significantly, for himself. (Sanders 733).
Do you think I like living like this? Do you?’ That night when Dad came home, he and Mom got into a big fight. ”(Walls 69) Fighting like this between her father and many others continues to occur throughout the author’s life, as her father is an alcoholic.