The blatant alcoholism is on my other's side of the family. She and her brothers all drank very heavily. She has two sisters, and I do not think they did. The odd glass of wine on a holiday for them. And there is some dark secret in my father's family tree. My husband actually got the story talking to relatives of mine. He is a genealogy hobbyist. My grandfather's grandfather, went off on the road with some boxer, as his manager, and was said to be an alcoholic. I do know there is very little alcoholism in that side of the family, but one here or there. No alcohol was ever allowed to be served in my grandmother's house, upstairs from my own, from 1964 on, until her death in 1987! However, that did not mean we abstained downstairs, in our own home.
My mother was an alcoholic. Ice tinkling in her coffee mug many days when I got home from school. She was an angry drunk too. For a long time, I excused my drinking, in my mind, because I did not become that altered, angry person, like she did. My dad hated her drinking. He did enjoy a couple of beers on a Saturday night, and a whiskey with ginger-ale on special occasions.