Dad Is a "Drinking Man"

Dad is a “Drinking Man” is a moving story about an individual who overcomes his drinking problem. It is about family, about the positives and negatives in relationships, the stuff people generally can’t seem to put into words. Slippery things like tradition, neglect, pride, tender affection, and wrenching emotion. It is about denial and the power of addiction to delude generations. Dad is a “Drinking Man” is also entertaining and it’s bound to...
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Dad is a “Drinking Man” is a moving story about an individual who overcomes his drinking problem. It is about family, about the positives and negatives in relationships, the stuff people generally can’t seem to put into words. Slippery things like tradition, neglect, pride, tender affection, and wrenching emotion. It is about denial and the power of addiction to delude generations. Dad is a “Drinking Man” is also entertaining and it’s bound to make you smile as you read about people who seem familiar.

The narrator’s relatives are outgoing in society and reserved in private. His family spends a lot of time together. Banter between them is easy, though subjects that provoke, like anger or worry, are subtly avoided. An only child, the son feels incredibly special and basks particularly in the attentions of his beguiling dad with whom he often travels.

A “Drinking Man,” the Dad champions this family tradition. The son mimics the father he idolizes and grows up to live a parallel lifestyle. In time, he gains insight about his forefathers’ succession of shattered relationships. As he seeks a life of emotional abundance, the narrator rethinks his growing up from angles a child could not see and angles a drinking man could not imagine.

Ready to relinquish his immature image of his dad and let go of the grasp his past has had on him, the narrator writes of his journey away from the family’s tenacious hand-me-down.