I never hide the fact I’m the son of an alcoholic.

Consequently, there’s no reason for me to ignore this aspect of my life when writing about wines and our wine cellar.

Everyone’s life is made up of experiences. When I look at mine I see a select few of what I call transformational experiences. These are experiences, which concretely altered the path I was on at the time and forged me into, well, me. One of those transformational experiences was my father’s alcoholism. It had huge negative effects on my development as a youngster, my college years, and my ability, or rather inability, to function as a healthy adult, especially when it came to forging interpersonal relationships. I also have seen the effects of his alcoholism reach from him, to his children, and sadly to his grandchildren as well. It can truly be a multigenerational disease. For this reason alone I never want to forget my father’s alcoholism nor do I want it to be forgotten by my children and their children. Who knows, perhaps this is what my favorite band, the Moody Blues, was thinking about when they named their 1969 album To Our Children’s Children’s Children. This is why I’m ever vigilant in my own behavior as well as reminding our children of alcoholism’s tenacity and durability in families.

I was the youngest child in my family and as such I lived more of the dysfunction of our alcoholic family. My older siblings were married and gone when my dad’s alcoholism really hit high gear. I lived, and was the recipient of, much more of the dysfunction than they. When my father finally agreed to go to treatment the first time it tore our family apart as my siblings believed this was something being ginned up by my wife and I and was simply a lie. The second time they finally believed since it was his company that sent him to ‘go dry out or be fired’.

My mom was a wonderful mother, but she was also a classic and accomplished enabler. Each of us kids took on a classic child-of-an-alcoholic role; one being the ‘wild child’, one being the ‘perfect child’ and one, me, being the ‘invisible child’.

Personally I didn’t drink until I went off to college. There I drank and I drank with a vengeance. Too much, too often, and without remorse. After all it was what I had seen my dad do all his life! It was what I thought was ‘normal’ for lack of a better term.

It wasn’t until very late in my collegiate years something began gnawing on me this might be having a negative impact on me. Unfortunately, this was at the expense of several people who at the time I had intimate relationships with. It wasn’t until years into my own marriage that I began to understand and come to grips with the toll my dysfunctional, alcoholic upbringing had taken on me. Thankfully my wife was incredibly understanding and stuck with me as I caromed about trying to deal with it all. She also believed we couldn’t overcome it all on our own and willingly joined me in Al-Anon groups and years of therapy.

After my dad went through his second inpatient treatment program I decided I needed to quit drinking, mostly as an example to my kids. I followed this idea for over a dozen years and then one day said to my wife “you know, honey, I don’t think total abstinence is the best thing for me to be modeling for our children as they approach drinking age. I need to show them, by example, what responsible drinking looks like.” She agreed. Tragically it had taken me well over 40 years to, as they say, ‘get my shit in one bag’ and I still fight with many of the demons that stubbornly occupy certain recesses of my personality.

I almost want to post a warning sign above our cellar door, but instead I’d rather stand there and tell my story to all who will listen. Drink, enjoy, and beware!