you'd be amazed. I had wanted to avoid saying this, but... My father is in his 50s, and has a house with his third wife, and a job where he wears a suit. He is also an alcoholic and has been for as long as I can remember. He doesn't sleep with a bottle of gin by the pillow, but he can't go a day without drinking, always has a bottle or two of wine with dinner, always has a few pints at the Conservative Club of an evening with his friends and so on. At first he didn't drive drunk, or drink in the day but it progressed, gradually. His alcoholism has led to stunts like: Continuing, despite his remarriage, to turn up drunk at our family home trying to get in, send my mother flowers, etc. While still living with us, going through the wrong door at night - my sisters bedroom instead of the upstairs toilet - and very nearly taking a piss all over her room. Getting drunk and, when my sister and I refused to get in the car with him because he was so drunk, driving off and leaving us alone with no money or phones at 9pm on a Friday in an unfamiliar town many miles from our mother's house. We were both under 18 at the time. After *that* particular episode, our mother stopped pushing us to maintain contact, and we told him we'd only come and stay with him again if he could limit his drinking to one session a day and not drive drunk. He said that was an unreasonable demand (well, the exact response involved more swearing). As a result we haven't seen him for about seven years. Alcohol had become more important than family. He isn't an unusual case, I assure you.