The earliest memories I can conjure up of my dad being drunk involved a big, happy bear of a guy singing. Howling like Little Richard, perhaps (he was a big fan) or spoofing on Elvis. Or singing that one song— 

Jack o' Diamonds

Jack o' Diamonds!

that I remember the timbre of more than forty years after I heard it last. I can look back now through the eyes of my own children and surmise several stages in developing childhood awareness of parental alcohol use. 

1. Recognition of what alcohol is;
2. Recognition that it changes people;
3. Recognition that it changes different people in different ways at different times;
4. Recognition that some people have a greater problem with it than others (through observation across time and at gatherings);
5. Recognition that one's own parent may/may not have a problem with alcohol;
6. Recognition that one's own parent is, in fact, a drunk.  

I put these stages in this order because they make sense to my adult self and because I've watched my own kids living through steps 1-5. I vaguely remember the times I first discerned the difference between my father as a fun drunk and an angry drunk—the days when he didn't sing "Jack o' Diamonds" or try to dance, but instead holed himself up in his den in the basement and forbid us (via my mother) to talk because he needed space.

His precious space to pity himself in, or flog himself in, or do whatever he did that he was too ashamed to share.  

I remember being at family gatherings and seeing my father drink more and get more belligerent than his brothers, though he didn't drink as much as my uncle Eddie (a more ferocious drunk who died at 37). I remember fights with my mother about coming home drunk. I remember seeing other people's fathers drinking beers and not acting like mine did. I remember feeling that I'd seen my father play out the same few scenes one too many times, then five too many times…. I remember theorizing, probably at age eight or nine, that my father's drinking might have had some connection to why we never had enough money. 

Somebody much smarter than I am has done a study about the stages of recognition for children of alcoholics, and I'll bet my rubric lines up pretty well. I don't want to research such things—too depressing. I also don't want to know the answers, which is why I don't dare sing "Jack o' Diamonds." I could sing it pitch-perfect myself if I wanted to, but that might raise the dead. My dad might come back and answer all my questions, pinpoint for me exactly when I went through each stage of realization in realizing that my dad was not only a drunk, but plumb loco as well. 

And I don't want any certainty, of the scholarly or of the ghostly kind, because I love my questions. I don't know what on earth I'd do without my questions. I'm a weaver of labyrinths, man. I dig tunnels of story that interconnect like prairie dog towns, spreading for miles beneath the supposedly solid ground we all tread.