My father died when i was 15 of all things, alcoholism, he was a retired Marine who worked for a national newspaper and drank beer everyday....i cant ever recall seeing him drunk. When he died i went to a few al-anon meetings, my mother was a drunk...never abusive but a drunk and wasnt there a lot of the time, there was six of us so we looked out for each other, thats what you did back then. I thought making a conscious effort not to go down that road then alcoholism no longer had a hold on me..HA HA. My mothers family has a history of anxiety problems and when i was 35....ten years after i had been diagnosed, i found out my mother had the exact same problems i had and that is what caused he to start drinking. The term is self medicating. The one time she brought it up my father and her family thought she needed to be locked away in a mental hospital and this was probably sometime in the late 50s early 60s so you can imagine how scary that was. I have the big red book it was given to me and have started it and will continue to address this. My one big regret is i lost my mother ten years later and as much as i loved her then i have so much more respect for her now and feel so bad because now i understand why she did the things she did and when i was younger all i did was blame her. She was a fantastic woman who i miss very much.