There's an entire organization devoted to helping people deal with booze-soaked legacies like my father's––Adult Children of Alcoholics––and though it would probably be good for me to look into it and talk with other people in my situation, I've always been too proud. I don't gravitate toward group things, probably because of the "I'll survive this on my own" mentality that got me through my dad's breakdown and death. And probably because I've talked about Thomas J. Wingate's substance abuse problems ad infinitum with my older brothers Tom and Mike. 

They're technically half-brothers, since we have the same father but different mothers, but I leave out the half part. They're my brothers. We swam through shit together. 

All three of us have wrestled, in various forms, with the same beast of addiction that killed our father. It may yet kill all of us. I don't know if we're all physically cursed with a gene or spiritually cursed with our dad's sense of failure, but we've all got the family problem either way. 

I don't want it to be the family problem anymore. Not for me, not for my sons. I want the line to stop with me. What will it take to make that happen? 

1. ____ YEARS SOBER
2. THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY
3. POUNDS OF MY FLESH