We all, probably, have a story involving a drunk family member at a party or family reunion. Let’s just say my family has plenty. My uncle on my dad’s side of the family loves his tequila and brings his own bottle(s) to any family gathering. The particular family gathering you are about to hear about happened when I was about five years old. I can remember bits and pieces of the event in question but, the main part of the story happened past my bedtime. It was spring and, it was my stepmom’s birthday. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family loves to drink, and all their friends love to drink. Because my father was in charge of me he didn’t drink. The party starts pretty casually and light-hearted. My stepmom didn’t want anyone to get blackout …show more content…
It’s been told over and over again at various family gatherings. We all throw jabs at Dylan even to this day. One of my earliest memories of hearing it had to be around age seven. Dad was driving and I had asked him to tell me a story. He says he choose this particular one because I was there for part of the events. The only other person I’ve heard tells the story was Dylan himself. In his version, it was my dad who offered up the idea of climbing the tree. A fact that is conveniently missing from my dad’s narrative. There is plenty of reasons as to the purpose of the story. To embarrass Dylan, I think is one of the main ones. My dad also loves telling stories, in general, he loves to be the center of attention. A more deep reason for him to have told me this story as often as he has could be his fear that I’ll make the same mistakes he did. My dad has struggled with drug and alcohol abuse his entire life. He is currently in Prison right now for not finishing drug court. This is a funny story yet, always my dad would emphasize how Dylan could have seriously hurt himself had he gotten farther up the tree and blacked out. He always ends his tales of drunk or high friends with lessons of the dangers of such activities. I think that he was trying to do for me what his parents never did for him. I never even met my grandparents from his side of the family. All I know is they never really cared about what he
The setting of this observation takes place in a suburban home in southern Maryland. The home belongs to the grandmother of the subject. The day is before thanksgiving and there are a lot of family members present. Six people other than Imani are here; her older brother who seemed to be 2 years old, her male cousin who seems to be the same age as her, her grandmother, two aunts, an uncle, and her mother. There are three boys total and four females, including Imani. The home has three floors, with most of the activity taking place in the kitchen and family room. In the family room, there were couches, a tread mill, television, and a set of steps that lead to the kitchen. The kitchen has a table, an island, appliances,
Many of my relatives were alcoholics. There was never a family brunch, dinner, or casual gathering that was not centered around alcohol. The excessive and consistent reliance on alcohol fueled the arguments and shouting matches I witnessed between my male relatives. Their arguments were always laden with racist, sexist, and classist hatred. My female relatives were silent, resentful observers of the flying slurs who found solace in their own alcoholic stupors.
In the book, Dylan’s mom speaks on how Dylan is a well-rounded child, and she mentions he had big plans for his life.
In some cultures, there are situations that involves drinking. These include: birthday parties, New Year’s festivities, graduations, weddings receptions, Fourth of July, Christmas and Mardi Gras. In these holidays, people usually drink in excess to have a good time and celebrate. Different countries specialize in different types of alcohol, such as: the Italian have really good wine, Mexico is known for beer and tequila, Ireland is famous for beer and whiskey, Japan has their own beverage called Sake, and the United States is known for beer, wine, and whiskey. In these cultures, drinking alcohol is an acceptable type of celebration that teenagers even participate in. Not all alcohol consumed is in celebration. Therefore, “the top 20 percent of drinkers consume approximately 30 percent of all alcohol drunk over a 12-month period” (Grant 290).
Alcoholic parents could have a young, teenage or grown-up child but either way, they can disturb a child’s life and cause damaging effects that can last a lifetime. The negative effects can range from low self-esteem, loneliness, guilt, abandonment, anxiety to as extreme as depression. It is because they feel they are different from other people, that they develop a poor-self image that they carry throughout their life. In the novel, Snow feels very different from her best friend Carla. Even though Snow may share her stories about how her grandmother drank too much one night or cursed at her after-school, she knows that Carla may nod her head and say that she understands, but in reality, she never will. On page fourteen, Carla said, “Sorry. It’s not a good time. My mom’s being a drag” (Cowan 14). However, Snow stated, “Though usually, Carla’s fights are over stupid things, like her mom refusing to buy her a pair of jeans or shrinking her shirt in the dryer” (Cowan 15). This passage establishes that Carla’s family problems are so minuscule compared to Snow. She will get upset at her mother about insignificant things, while Snow fights with her grandmother daily and her grandmother will go as far as harassing and abusing her, by cursing or being violent. Her grandmother’s unpredictable and chaotic behavior disturbs Snow’s life and causes harmful effects that can last a
We knocked on the door of the off-campus apartment, as it opened we were confronted with the heavy stench of alcohol. A young girl was passed out on the living room floor, a pile of empty beer cans filled the kitchen sink, and the deafening music rattled the window panes. A group of girls managed to stumble past us. They waved goodbye to the host, who was handing drinks to me and my sister. It was not my first time drinking. In fact, everyone there was quite experienced – after all, it’s college. Half of the guests were completely drunk, and I had no problem with it. That is, until later that night when my sister locked herself in a room with a guy she had met only a week before. This prompted me to seriously consider the effects of alcohol. Would my sister have been able to see the danger of the situation had she been sober? Would the absence of alcohol have prevented the events of that night from occurring? These questions, along with the vivid memory of that night, fueled my examination of the complex social problem of underage drinking.
Many teenagers feel isolated at some point during high school. This isolation is often accompanied by feeling shunned, ostracized and left-out. As Dylan grew up, he was very, very shy, especially entering middle school. In high school, he felt, along with Eric Harris, that he was judged for being outside of societa...
In an interview with time magazine, Dylan said “I haven’t got anything to say about the things I write, I just write em’, I don’t have anything to say about them, I don’t write them for any reason, theres no great “message”, if you wanna tell other people that then go ahead and tell...
Alcohol, also known as the party juice, There is a lot of debate going on about alcohol and what the drinking age in the U.S. should be. The U.S. is the only country in the world that has the drinking age being twenty-one as to everywhere else, for example in Europe, where it is eighteen. Even though a lot of people want the drinking age to be lowered to eighteen so they could purchase the alcohol legally, it’s sadly not going to happen. I am neutral in the debate since I see just as many pros as I see cons. Alcohol could have a huge impact on your life if you don’t limit yourself. Even though it is great at parties and social gatherings to make the atmosphere a little better, it could be really harmful if used excessively. Alcohol could have a huge impact on your mental and physical health, it has a lot of side effects and could even be deadly.
My aunt heavily depends on alcohol on holidays. When the family gathers, eat, and enjoy each other, my aunt seems to always turn to a bottle of liquor. For example, last Christmas, my family gathered, as usual, and ate, talked, laughed, and reminisced. It was a joyous time. The warmth of the fire burning in the fire place, the tasteful smell of Christmas dinner, and the love of family filled the atmosphere. Yet, when my aunt arrived, the family immediately knew she was intoxicated and begin to feel disappointed. She greeted the family members with what she thought were kisses, but were really her lips meeting the jaws, while leaving tons of slobber. She smelled as if she bathed in alcohol and she would talk much louder than the normal. The family still re...
Before I took a sip, I recognized a familiar smell, one I really couldn’t my finger on. It wasn’t Pepsi and I knew it wasn’t Sprite. Then it hit me, I was being offered alcohol. I was only a freshman, and I was being offered a glass of alcohol. My first glass of alcohol. I could not believe it.
Today, the most difficult day in my family’s life, we gather to say farewell to our son, brother, fiancé and friend. To those of you here and elsewhere who know Dylan you already are aware of the type of person he was and these words you will hear are already in your memory. To those who were not as fortunate, these words will give you a sense of the type of man he was and as an ideal for which we should strive. My son has been often described as a gentle soul. He was pure of heart and had great sensitivity for the world around him. He had a way with people that made them feel comfortable around him and infected others to gravitate toward him. Dylan exuded kindness and pulled generosity and altruism out from everyone he touched. He was everyone's best friend.
When alcohol is abused in a family, all members are effected, especially the children. Children are the ones that are left with severe emotional scars when it comes down to having a alcoholic parent. Fortunately, my parents don’t drink and have never touched or experimented with alcohol during their life. However, my uncle has abused alcohol as far back as I can remember. I can recall times when my little cousin was a young girl growing up and was constantly exposed to my uncle’s terrible drinking habits. He would keep on drinking hard liquor until he was beyond drunk. As he would sit at the table eating his dinner and drinking his whiskey, he would start arguing over nothing with my aunt. My little cousin would watch them lash out at each other until her older brother would dash out his bedroom to stop the meaningless arguing. The older my little cousin got, the more frequent and common the arguing became. It came to the point when my cousin had trouble studying because the fighting had upset her, causing her to loose her concentration. Therefore, her grades at school slowly began to drop.
Dylan seems to like the stories of when his dad and I were in high school, mainly because I think that he can relate to the high school version of his parents rather than the adult version. I think that because I am able to empathize with him and remember what it was like to be in middle school than it will help me to give him the advice that he will listen to instead of saying “yeah right mom, You don 't know what it 's like in middle
"The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you." -Kendall Hailey. Many people among us think that a family reunion is boring. It is an unpleasant social affair where our parents drive us to go and stay there for a considerable length of time. There are odd individuals who come to us and kiss or embrace us while we are still considering "do I know him/her?”. It is because we believe that enjoying the holiday out with friends is much better than investing hours with the people, we “unfortunately” belong to. They have no other subject for discussion aside from our studies and grades. On the other hand, family gathering is always a new experience for someone who lives far away from his blood relations.