Social Problem Analysis of the Glass Castle-------the Impact of the Alcoholism

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.

What is alcoholism and how does it severely affect people? It is a chronic condition characterized by uncontrolled drinking and preoccupation with alcohol. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette’s father Rex, is an alcoholic. We assume he enjoys drinking when on page nine, Jeannette recalls her father smelling of whiskey. “As he held me close, I breathed in his familiar smell of Vitalis, whiskey, and cigarette smoke. It reminded me of home.” While it is concerning that young Jeannette knows what whiskey smells like, it is not concerning enough until page fourteen, paragraph six. “In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a little bit of a drinking situation. There was what Mom

Alcoholism does not only affect a person’s physical, mental, and emotional state, but it also changes the lives of people close to the drinker forever. It ruins relationships and trust that took years to build up, and may never be able to be restored. In Jeannette Walls’s memoir, The Glass Castle, she tells the story of her childhood in which her father was an alcoholic. Jeannette’s father, Rex Walls, was brilliant and charismatic when he was sober, but when he drank, he was destructive and dishonest.

Alcohol has always been one of the most profitable industries in the business world. More than $400 billion worth of alcohol purchased in the US alone in 2013 according to an economic website. Alcohol is a common figure where it can be easily spot in every household to grand restaurants, however, it is a huge factor contributed to the death rate each year. It has ruined an innumerable number of people lives due to excessive drinking or affect by an alcoholic person. In his book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, Sherman Alexie emphasizes how significance alcohol can affect a teenager life, where Junior, the main protagonist has lost 3 family members because of alcohol. He shows that alcoholic should not be taken as a

“Alcohol addiction stunts the spiritual, emotional and mental growth of a person”~Anonymous. Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is a book based off the author’s teenage life. The novel is about a poor 14 year old named Junior who faced numerous challenges in his life. Junior has experienced bullying, he was called a traitor for following his dreams, got in a huge fight with his best friend and lost three very important people in his life because of alcohol. Fortunately in the end, Junior got through the pain and lived on but he learned many lessons. One of the lessons Junior learned was that the fall into addiction, in this situation alcohol, leads to a great deal of misery for the individual and those

Primary alcoholism is where the patient has no other major psychiatric diagnosis. Secondary alcoholism is where the problem of drinking is the patient's preferred way of medicating symptoms of another psychiatric disorder, such as depression, schizophrenia, post–traumatic stress disorder, or another type of dissociative disorders. I feel that Rex suffers from secondary alcoholism, and uses alcohol to suppress his depression. Rex is depressed because he isn’t the father he wants to be. He bounces around from job to job not able to secure a stable environment for his family, he hasn’t even started on the glass castle, and his wife only cares about art and herself. He uses alcohol as an escape from all of these things on his “to-do list” that will never be checked off. The Walls family had no stable income and had to dress in ripped, old clothes from the trash or thrift store. Jeannette says, “I had three dresses to my name, all hand-me-downs or from a thrift store, which meant each week I had to wear two of them twice” (Walls 140). The family, especially the children, were constantly hungry, and sometimes did not have lunch. They had to wait in the bathrooms or cafeteria and scavenge for the remnants of someone else’s fulfilling

I decided to write my final paper on Koren Zailckas Smashed: A Story of a Drunken Girlhood. A memoir based on a young 14 year old girl who drinks for the first time with her friend Natalie before a birthday party. Her experiences with alcohol doesn’t stop there. We learn that she gets her stomach pumped at age 16, and at age 22, wakes up in an apartment in New York City unsure of where she is, because of alcohol. After this, she realizes that she has a problem and that she needs help. I chose this book as the topic of underage drinking and alcohol abuse is constantly rising in our society today. It is a problem that many youth kids are facing, and this book perfectly describes a young girls story about her addiction with alcohol and the many poor decisions she makes.

In Jeannette Walls's, The Glass Castle, we learn of a family's struggles and Jeannette's life growing up as she traveled across the country under unbelievable circumstances. Most of the time, Jeannette, Brian, and Lori, were left to take care of their mom and alcoholic father, including their baby sister Maureen, and lastly each other. Through these sibling's many hardships, they face many challenges moving and constantly trying to control their father’s alcoholic temper. For centuries many families have fell victims to alcohol abuse leaving them scarred and traumatized. In 2012 over 100,000 cases of crime have gone under the category of drunk driving .

Alcoholism, although thought mostly of its impact on the alcoholic themselves, it is also a very present problem in the ruining of his or her friends and their families lives. Someone who may be a fully functional, great person to his or her family may be extremely dangerous, dishonest, and destructive while they are under the influence of alcohol. This instance occurs in "The Glass Castle" with Rex Walls and also occurs regularly in our society today, such as abusive parents, and husbands. Without alcohol Rex was intelligent, responsible, honest, and a overall respectable father figure, but when under the

Today, one out of every thirteen adults abuse alcohol or are alcoholics. That means nearly thirteen million Americans have a drinking problem. (www.niaaa.nih.gov) This topic offers a broad range of ideas to be researched within the psychological field. For this particular project, the topic of alcoholism and the psychological effects on people best fit the criteria. Alcoholism is defined as a disorder characterized by the excessive consumption of and dependence on alcoholic beverages, leading to physical and psychological harm and impaired social and vocational functioning. (www.dictionary.com) Through this project, the most important information regarding personal experiences

“Alcoholism is a well documented pathological reaction to unresolved grief” I remember the first time I did research on alcoholism and this quote appeared, my sister explained and I wondered what was my uncle “unresolved grief”. What iron times did he encounter that impacted him so much that he devoted his life to alcohol. The “he” I'm referring to is my uncle Raul, he was a man with terrible sadness. I never knew why until I heard his life through my aunts speech. Throughout the years I regret saying it but I hated him, how couldn't I? He used my family and I as doormats. From time to time I couldn't stand his voice or his sight. I look back now and realize my hatred for him wasn't that he took advantage of us, it was the fact that I was to closed minded

Alcoholism is always a problem in the past or at present. People drink due to many reason, depression, anxiety, tension and etc. Also, the complex society we are living in is a vital factor causing pressure. We are living under this complex society and stress comes from everywhere, stress from work, stress from friends, stress from relationship. Under great stress, anxiety and tension, people need to find some way to relieve themselves, to relieve that stress and drinking is one of the ways they choose. Till now, there are seldom researches relating stress to alcoholism. So, in this research essay, based on Augusten’s Dry: A Memoir and his behaviors in this book, I hope to give some proofs that stress is one factor that causes drinking since

He fell into depression, which he then tried to use alcohol to suppress. In his time of need he confided in alcohol because nobody was ever there for him and everybody he ever loved died so he felt that all he had was alcohol. His mother, foster mother, brother, father and wife all died of tuberculosis. You would think tuberculosis would be his worst enemy, but it wasn't it was alcohol. After his wife died he had two other fiances, one left him when she saw how mentally dark he was and the other left him because of his drinking problem.

I have done this task on the base of ethical analysis of alcoholism. Here I have applied Aristotle’s virtue ethics to social-psychological interpretation of one kind of alcoholism. I did it in order to enhance our understanding of the phenomenon of alcoholism and to illustrate the pertinence of Aristotle’s ethics. My finding can further explains understanding of contemporary problems such as alcoholism. After lot of research I have found that alcoholism is not a non-controversial medical debases. I found that social responsibility involves for developing alcoholism and it cannot mitigate. My thesis further explains that it would be the first choice of the person when he/she disappears. Every individual responsible for alcohol consumption. As a human being we must prevent the person to consume alcohol.

In the book “Dubliners”, the author, James Joyce, used many different short stories to present the style of life that he had been evidently witnessed in the Dublin of 1904. More importantly, one of the main themes in the book that he really wants to point out is alcohol causes serious problems on various individual’s lives and on those around them. As a child of a drunkard, Joyce truly understands how alcohol ruining his happy family life. Because his father is a drunkard, he and his family lost their comfortable home and suffer from the condition of poverty. Therefore, Joyce used many short story such as “counterparts”, “A Painful Case”, and “Araby” to show that alcohol can destroy people’s hope, reduce individual and other people’s credibility, reduce individual’s efficiency of work, and even can take away individual’s life.