“My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn't drink alcohol was not to be tolerated. I grew up in that belief.”

“In that college town, everyone went out with at least a little alcohol in their system. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but drinking alcohol always helped me with being more confident and sociable. On weekend nights, I took a few shots from my vodka bottle and set out on walks around the town, desperately hoping that I would stumble across some opportunity to make friends. I often ended up sitting alone at some café, hoping girls would talk to me before I sobered up. No girl ever did. I then went back home to lie in my bed alone.”

“I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot; he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking 'til he found it.”

“Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I’m considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, “Who knows why the fuck anything happens?””

“Whether I or anyone else accepted the concept of alcoholism as a disease didn't matter; what mattered was that when treated as a disease, those who suffered from it were most likely to recover.”

“And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic.”

“I went to rehab [for alcoholism] in wine country, just to keep my options open.”

“She was an alcoholic. I didn't blame myself for that. The worst problem in the life of any alcoholic is alcohol.”

“I grew up with an alcoholic father. He never beat me, he never raised a hand against my mother or anything like that, but I'd seen enough stupid and ridiculous things between that, my mother and her prescription pills, and just hanging out with an older crowd when I was a kid, that I didn't understand a lot of the fun to what partying was, so I just never did it. I didn't understand waking up next to somebody you don't remember going to bed with; I didn't understand getting, you know, blackout drunk and not remembering the good times you have with your buddies; and I feel so strongly about it that I've just always been this way—it just made sense.”

“An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.”