Analysis Of Under The Influence By Scott Russell Sanders

Scott Russell Sanders’ “Under the Influence” is about a family growing up with alcoholism, mental and physical abuse. When Sanders was very young, he didn’t recognize that his father was an alcoholic, but as he grew older, he saw the bloodshot eyes, hiding alcohol, the deceptions, and the dual personalities of an alcoholic. “My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling.” (215). Sanders story starts at the end, where his father dies from alcoholism. The turmoil and fear this family suffered because of their father’s alcoholism, is a story a lot of families are familiar with.

Moreover, in trying to return a toy gun that Martin dropped in the fight Vaca travels to Martin’s trailer home. Once inside he is greeted by the scent of Kerosene. This imagery denotes to Vaca the state of poverty that Martin actually lives in. This contradicts Vaca’s previous impressions of Martin, and opens him to what he is next to see. As he walks into the home he follows the worn appearance of the walls, to where Martin and his mother are weeping upon a homemade can chair. This state of emptiness and poverty begins to settle within Vaca’s mind. He wishes to confirm it by checking the dinner prepared for that night. Doing so would confirm or deny his initial impressions of his wealth due to Martin’s stomach. However, when he finds the worn table set for dinner he finds it nearly empty with very little food at all. This empty table symbolizes the truth behind Martin. That rather than being wealthy with food, Martin was an impoverished and malnourished

In Scott Russell Sanders’ memoir titled “Under the Influence,” he recalls his childhood and his father’s losing battle with alcoholism. First, Sanders starts with his father’s death from alcohol. Though his father had a problem, he never admitted having one. Sanders goes through his memory of his father and the times when he drank. He looks back onto situations where he and his siblings would encounter their dad consuming alcohol on a very regular basis. Then he describes how he struggled with his father's drinking. Sanders refers to how society portrays alcohol and the people who suffer from alcoholism. He also describes the literature aspect of the word “drunk.” Sanders follows

According to C. Wright Mills (1959), sociological imagination is the ability to appreciate a different (wider) perspective of the self in relation to others and to society than the narrow perspective of the self that comes most naturally to the individual. Today, sociological imagination is a concept that is considered central to the study of sociology and other disciplines such as social psychology because the ability to shift from a personal perspective to a more objective perspective is crucial to understanding other people and to understanding the norms, values, and expectations of other societies that may differ substantially from the society of the researcher or student.

Ever wondered why we act the way we do and how we become who we are? Well it all dates back to when we were just infants. As we grow older we constantly learn from what we see and feel. As babies, we connect with our caregivers in a way we sense what they sense that can shape us as we develop.

To start off, the main driven idea of this book is the black market, or what they refer to as the underground and “shadow economy”. The underground has its choices and consequences as well as any other type of economic system do. But, in this case the underground can be a country’s main economy for survival such as, “In Bolivia the underground economy is responsible for an estimated 65 percent of GDP. In Nigeria it accounts for perhaps 76 percent.” (7) This type of GDP from the underground is usually found in the developing worlds. That’s not to say that we don’t have a dark side of our own in the mix. The US has been the largest competitor in the Black Market in many fields for example: Marijuana,

The essay, “Under the Influence”, was written by Scott Russell Sanders at his forty-two years old. As the son of an alcoholic, Sander described his fearful childhood memory and how his family was affected by his alcoholic father in the long run. The purpose for Sander wrote this essay is that he wants his son can be saved from the chain of influences passed by his father.

In the memoir written by Rick Bragg called All Over but the Shoutin’, the writer talks about when he visited his father in a small house in Jacksonville, Alabama. The father he remembered is not the man that he encountered. The man that he expected to be was a young, black-haired, well-groomed man of yesteryear. Instead, he found an old, grey hair, smelly man. Bragg’s no longer recognized his father. Just as the father’s physical appearance had changed dramatically so did the attitude. The author memories of his father clashed with the person that he sees in front of him now. The narrator view of his father has changed since last seeing his father, for now, it’s old vs. young, sick vs. healthy, trying to be a father vs. neglectful.

A staggering 30% of U.S. adults have been or currently are alcoholics, and not all of them have abstained from parenthood. The essay “Under the Influence” by Russel Sanders tells the tale of a young boy who had an alcoholic father, who he could not understand why he was an alcoholic, except for the belief that he was possessed by demons. He didn’t live around any treatment centers that could help his father, for he lived in the backwoods of Ohio. He talked about the constant fear of his father beating him (which he never did), and the constant fear of his father leaving him (which he did for small increments of time). The trauma of having a father who was an alcoholic father stayed with Sanders well into adulthood.

Scott Russell Sanders wrote “Under the Influence,” a memoir depicting his alcoholic father whose many drunk dysfunctional states affected his life. Whose haunting demons from his death leaves Sanders with a guilt that, “...burns like acid in my veins,” (252) in certain moods. Like Sanders, I was left feeling anxious and guilty after the knowledge of Daniel’s, my older brother, diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes in 2011. At the age of 13, he was admitted into the hospital hooked up to various machines and their wires poking at him in different places on his body. As a younger sister, the anxiety I had about his health made me more concerned, leaving him to feel like a burden.

Sanders couldn’t bear for anyone to know, “the secret bores under the skin, gets in the blood, into the bone, and stays there”. Pg62 They grew up near a military reservation in Ohio where they stored an arsenal of bombs. Sanders that that when they were children the felt like they were living in a mine field, where “a heedless footfall could trigger an explosion, when father was drinking, the house, too, became a mine field. The more he drank, the more obsessed mother became with stopping him”. Pg. 63 When you are in a home with an alcoholic you are walking on eggshells, you have no idea what is going to set them. One day Sanders father got sick and almost died. The doctors told him that if he did not stop drinking that he would die. Once his father heard those words he stopped drinking. Over the next fifteen years his father was sober, he was pleasant to be around. He was funny, loving, he became an active member of the family

In Scott Russell Sanders “Under the Influence”, the painful memories of the author’s childhood memories of his experience of his father’s alcoholism is addressed right from the start. Sanders also discusses how this has effected Sanders and his family, and also how it is effecting his own children. His father’s alcoholism created an environment of fear in Sanders family is seen throughout the entire story. This is because of his father’s drunken behavior. Sanders father’s emotions clearly go from extreme rage to complete composure. Sanders perspective of his dad is explained and understood through what his father was going through at the time. Sanders tries to make sense of everything going on in his childhood and understand how it affects

In the story Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard there are three main characters so far Ava, Helen, and Swift. The story begins with Helen, who is the main character, she is lost at the beginning of the story and she has a son name Ollie who she is separated from and an ex husband. Ava is Hellens friend who she meets at work and becomes her close friend and advisor. Swift is Ava’s husband who is described as a romantic husband.

“Under the influence: Paying the price of my father’s booze” is an essay that was written by the author Scott Russell Sanders. He expressed his grievous feeling towards his father’s drinking habit and used both comparison and allegories to explain how serious his father’s alcoholism was and the negative effects he had during his childhood. Sander described his father as a demon after he had a drink which shows the horror that can be caused if a family has an alcoholic father. For instance, in the passage, Sander says “I use the past tense not because he ever quit drinking but because he quit living” that implies how his father’s alcoholism behavior ruined his life while he was in his childhood. Furthermore, there were a lot of disappointments going on in his family due to his father’s serious alcoholism.

Drug abuse is on the rise. While the use of drugs like cocaine and heroin is in a state of decline in certain parts of the world, prescription drugs abuse is on the rise (UNODC, 2013). Prescription drugs that were prescribed with the intention to do well are now one of the leading causes of self-harm. Drug abuse has no gender or social class, it can affect people regardless of social status and wealth, and now more than ever we need to understand the reason behind the abuse. What psychological factors could cause an individual to abuse drugs in the first place? In this research essay, I will discuss how each one of the major school of psychology perspectives could attempt to explain a