I come from a family of alcoholics. Sarah, my cousin, was the most recent to die of complications from alcoholism, at 41. Before her, seven people in our extended family, including her father, my father and our grandfather, died from alcohol-related problems.
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.
Everyone knows someone who drinks to excess, especially with 29 million alcoholics in the U.S. Holiday gatherings often feature at least one person who "has a few" before they arrive. They slur their words at the table or fall asleep early in the recliner.
Their behavior is accepted, and maybe even expected, in our culture. The U.S. ranks fifth in countries with the highest rate of alcohol use disorder behind Latvia, Belarus, Russia and Hungary.
The number of people addicted to alcohol in the U.S. is 14 times more than those addicted to opioids. More than twice as many people die annually from excessive drinking than from opioids. Why doesn't our country's alcoholism garner more attention?
America's alcoholism is celebrated. Drunken behavior is entrenched in our society. Maybe we are stuck in the fantasy of the "good times" shown in alcohol advertising and can't be bothered with the slow, invisible deaths happening off-screen. When we laugh at the person who is always drunk at the holiday party, we turn our backs on the emotional pain to their family who loves the person committing slow suicide.
Alcohol-related deaths are increasing, but, concurrently, there is a growing trend of drinking less or not at all. The sober-curious and Dry January movements buoy the 41% of Americans who planned to drink less in 2024 to improve their mental, financial and physical health, as reported by marketing data firm NCSolutions.
Like other addictions, alcoholism affects families. Children of alcoholics enter adulthood damaged, not launched; they figure out on their own how to make a safe landing. Some don't make it. A study published in 2012 in the medical journal Drug and Alcohol Review found 33% to 40% of children affected by parental alcohol problems develop a substance-related disorder themselves.
Both my parents were drunks. In early adulthood, the repercussions of being a child of alcoholism attacked my mental health, but I escaped the cycle by moving away, obtaining an education, entering therapy and finding a new definition for family. I dug in hard to get out but can't ever completely escape.
I'm not advocating for prohibition. But what if we opened our eyes to the prevalence of alcoholism in our country and the costs to children growing up in alcoholic families? More funding for research, increasing awareness of the risks of alcohol and more resources for people with alcohol use problems and their children would help families physically, financially and emotionally.
On average, Americans drink 27% more from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve compared with the rest of the year, the American Psychological Association found. If we continue to ignore relatives who drink to excessive jolly, we are complicit in diminishing the alcohol user's quality of life and hurting their family. Maybe your family.