Drinking: A Love Story

Knapp depicts alcohol as a lover throughout the book. It is a deceptive companion, luring her with promises of relief, transformation, and power. It provides these qualities in short bursts but fills her life with their opposites—stress, stagnation, and powerlessness—over the long term. It makes her feel like someone else, someone she likes better than her real self, then takes this feeling away, making her feel worse than before. As Knapp spends more and more time with alcohol, she invests less and less time in herself. This results in confusion about her identity, feelings of fragmentation, and a gnawing sense that she doesn’t know what she thinks about much of anything. By demanding Knapp’s attention and taking her mind to another place, it creates distance between her and the people she cares about. Knapp comes to feel that alcohol is the most important thing in her life, and she gives up many other people and possibilities to devote as much of herself as possible to drinking. In short, the relationship between Knapp and alcohol is abusive and harmful, not only to Knapp but to the other people in her life. After all, it is not a person, and it doesn’t get hurt when it hurts her.

Alcohol is also depicted as type of anesthesia, one that dulls painful sensations, provides an escape from anxiety, and can turn the drinker into a different version of himself and whisk him off to another place, even if that place exists only in his mind. At times, Knapp likens it to a psychedelic drug in that it provides the user with a quasi-spiritual sensation that makes them feel transformed and enlightened, even if it is actually robbing them of the tools to transform their real life and develop true insight. And, like a drug, alcohol is addictive, especially for people with a genetic predisposition to alcoholism.

Knapp sometimes places alcohol in a scapegoat role as well. She firmly believes that people with alcoholism lack some of the physiological defenses against its ill effects that non-alcoholics have, and that this problem is a disease, rather than a failure of willpower. She often says that alcohol drives her to do certain things, or that it does things to her, not that she did them of her own accord while under alcohol’s influence. For instance, she argues that a “drink stunts you, prevents you from walking through the kinds of fearful life experiences that bring you from point A to point B on the maturity scale” (75).

Knapp’s father, Dr. Knapp, is a psychoanalyst and a famed psychosomatic researcher at the Boston University Medical School. She describes him as “a tall, distinguished man of bracing intelligence and insight,” someone she fears because he seems to have the power to see through her, as if he has “X-ray vision” (32-33). Knapp says her father typically comes off as clinical and detached, and that his psychoanalytic training shapes the way that he has conversations with her. Instead of relating, he has a tendency to ask a series of probing questions that make her feel vulnerable and exposed. This causes her a great deal of anxiety that manifests itself in dreams and, perhaps, behaviors such as food restriction. His intensity is intimidating, but at the same time, she feels a deep connection to him, in part because they share a certain strain of sadness that she can’t quite describe:“He could make you feel […] singularly special, as though you were a bright light in his life and he had some key to that light, a way of accessing the things about you that were real and true” (36). At the same time, he often made her feel like a patient, rather than a daughter who needs and deserves unconditional love.

One of the things that bothers Knapp the most about her father is the fact that he probes too deep with his questioning while revealing so little about himself. She worries that he might consume her and also suspects, as a young child, that he knows everything about her. She can’t hide from his probing mind, but she tries to lead him away from what she actually thinks and feels when she feels threatened. She compares his supposed omniscience to that of the Wizard of Oz, and she notes how alcohol, like untruths, offers protection and “dilute[s] some of the distance and confusion and reserve” (38).

Over time, Knapp learns more about her father as family secrets begin to creep out of the woodwork. She finds out that he was married to an alcoholic woman, Shelby, and that the two of them had several children, including a disabled boy named Wicky. She learns that he carried on a long love affair while married to her mother. She finds out that he also struggles with alcoholism and has for much of his life. These revelations make Knapp feel even more like her father—and more connected to him—while showing her that she doesn’t need to suffer the way he did. She can part ways with alcohol before it completely ruins her life. She can deal with her demons before she dies, something he was never able to do.

Knapp’s mother, Mrs. Knapp, is an artist. Knapp describes her as gentle and caring but also reserved. She does not struggle with alcoholism, but like Dr. Knapp, she shies away from outward signs of affection such as hugging, kissing, and saying, “I love you.” These are simply not part of the Knapp family lexicon. Knapp observes distance between her mother and father and initially attributes it to her father’s clinical nature. In reality, this distance may also have to do with strife in their marriage, something they hid expertly. For years, Knapp thought they had little-to-no conflict because she never saw it with her own eyes.

On several occasions, including a walk on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard, Knapp’s mother expresses concern about her daughter’s drinking. Knapp’s response is often to hide her alcohol use better. Sometimes, Knapp promises her mother that she’ll drink less, but she has great trouble keeping these promises. Knapp describes her mother as “someone who chooses her words very carefully” and is deliberate about having serious conversations in private (3). She also values order, control, and keeping up appearances. However, this becomes virtually impossible when Mrs. Knapp is tasked with caring for Wicky early in her marriage to Dr. Knapp. The boy has severe emotional, intellectual, and behavior problems, including a tendency to lash out with physical violence. He is also blind and needs a great deal of specialized care. Mrs. Knapp feels overwhelmed by these responsibilities, and instead of providing assistance and support, Dr. Knapp goes to work and detaches himself in other ways, both physically and emotionally. Knapp says her father wooed her mother with intensity, quitting his two-packs-a-day cigarette habit cold turkey just to show how devoted he was. But doubt gets cast on this devotion when Wicky enters the household, creating chaos:

Wicky’s presence was the first real sign that my father’s devotion to her might be more complex, more qualified, than she’d felt it to be before; he was the first tangible sign of trouble from my father’s past, of baggage brought and left, like the abandoned child, at her feet (50).

Even after Wicky leaves and eventually dies, the Knapp household is haunted by his memory. Knapp says there were no obvious signs of trouble in the Knapp house, “nothing but a lingering suspicion of anxiety and sadness, something so subtle it seemed to exist only in the farthest reaches of the rooms, under the gray rug on the floor, or whispering behind the curtains” (43).

As Mrs. Knapp learns more of Dr. Knapp’s secrets, she becomes angry and a bit more open about her frustrations with the relationship, at least around her children. She and Dr. Knapp stay married, but their marriage is not particularly healthy. They both suffer from cancer as well, a development that forces Knapp to acknowledge their vulnerabilities, as well as her own.

Becca is Knapp’s twin sister. Knapp says that growing up, Becca was the bolder sister, while she was the shy one. At times, Becca makes Knapp feel like a failure, not so much through things she says but the fact that she is doing a better job of pleasing others and making progress toward goals such as marriage and higher education. Knapp feels angry and jealous when Becca gets married. At the time, Knapp is in a troubled relationship with Julian, who makes her feel insecure. Becca also graduates from the medical school her father teaches at, something that brings great pride to the family and cements the sense that she belongs in the clan. Knapp does no such thing.

Knapp also depicts Becca as an important source of insight on the road to sobriety. At several points in the book, she mentions how Becca would call her, voicing her worries that Knapp would kill herself with her drinking. Becca tells Knapp that she doesn’t want to lose her. She is also more open about her concern for Knapp than other members of the family, who rarely comment on Knapp’s drinking or anorexia. Near the end of the book, Becca is the one who affirms to Knapp that she must quit drinking. Becca also finds Knapp the rehab center that helps her become sober.

Julian is an art dealer Knapp begins dating when she is 28. He appeals to her desire for a brainy, cultured man, but he also makes her feel bad about herself. Because he is the type of man Knapp thinks she is supposed to be with, she is willing to overlook the ways he demeans her, intimidates her, and activates her neediness. To Knapp, Julian is “the big improvement,” something her friends from AA often mention seeking (170). Sometimes it’s a better apartment, sometimes it’s a better job, and sometimes it’s a better relationship. Whatever it is, alcoholics often feel the need to change something when it seems like the world is crumbling before them; they just can’t figure out that it’s their drinking that needs to change, she asserts. And because Julian makes Knapp feel weak, needy, and incompetent, she drinks often to deal with her discomfort and feel confident enough to function around him.

Julian is a connoisseur of wine, fashion, and culture. Knapp wants his confidence and sophistication to rub off on her; she expects him to transform her, something she later realizes is unrealistic. Julian expects Knapp to care about the things he cares about, which sometimes leads to conflict between them. He has strong opinions and often criticizes Knapp, telling her that she should change the way she looks or try harder to make him stay attracted to her. He pushes her to wear high-fashion outfits that make her feel exposed and extremely uncomfortable, such as the black Lycra dress Knapp destroys at the end of the book. Knapp thinks Julian loves an idealized version of Knapp that lives inside his head, not the version of her that she actually is. This makes her upset and angry, though she is not immediately aware of these feelings. Instead, these feelings spill out when she is drunk. When this happens, she is prone to fighting with Julian.

Knapp compares her relationship with Julian to an addiction and says she was even more addicted to him than she was to alcohol. She finds it extremely hard to detach from him because of this dynamic, even when she begins dating another man. Instead of fleeing when they fight or when he hurts her, she clings, convinced that she’ll perish if she can’t be with him:

I clung to Julian because I thought he saw and acknowledged the real me, the hideous, unlovable, flawed person I really was, and I wanted him to love me in spite of that. I clung to him because I figured that sooner or later he would stop tolerating me and leave; and I clung to him because the alternative was too scary; in order to leave him I would have had to form a vision of myself as worthy and valuable, and I would have had to acknowledge the depth of my own rage (180).

Some aspects of Knapp’s attraction to Julian, such as his tendency to make her feel exposed, are linked to Knapp’s relationship with her father. Plus, her relationship with Julian has the useful side effect of pushing other worries out of her mind. As she puts it, “Julian occupied more and more space in my head, eliminating room for other concerns” (180). This is the same thing that alcohol does, as Knapp’s addiction ramps up. It takes up an increasing amount of mental real estate as she thinks about what she’ll drink, when she’ll drink, how she’ll get her next drink, and how she’ll hide how much she’s drinking. And, much like alcohol, Julian keeps Knapp from taking charge of her life and its problems by making her feel powerless and incapable of succeeding.

Michael is a freelance illustrator Knapp meets at work and proceeds to date. She suspects he is the kindest man she has ever known. Knapp begins dating Michael after she moves out of Julian’s apartment, but before she truly parts ways with Julian. Though she doesn’t deny seeing other people, she isn’t honest with Michael about the nature of her relationship with Julian. Despite this, Michael is patient and doesn’t push her to commit. He also provides an appealing contrast to Julian:

He appealed to the part of me that wanted to be with an easy, comfortable, loving man, and at the same time he conflicted with the part of me that wanted to be with a complicated, cerebral, willful man, and so began my own version of the drunken drama(197).

The first time Knapp stays over at Michael’s house, he talks to his mother on the phone. He tells his mother that he loves her without seeming embarrassed in the least. This amazes Knapp, for it’s so different a dynamic from the way affection was handled in her home when she was growing up. She can’t even recall a time that her parents said “I love you.” This difference draws her closer to Michael: “I was like a sponge around him, soaking up that affection as though I’d been starved” (197).

Despite being attracted to Michael’s kind, easygoing nature and the affection he shares so willingly, Knapp struggles to devote herself to their relationship before becoming sober. She hides liquor from Michael and sneaks out of his apartment to visit Julian. She doesn’t fully appreciate how forgiving he is of her shortcomings, especially her habit of blaming others for things without turning a critical eye toward herself. As Knapp explains it, “one of the sick things about being drunk and confused all the time is that a good thing can be staring you straight in the face and you really can’t see it” (197).

Knapp feels more drawn to Michael once she gives up alcohol because she can fully appreciate him for the first time. As her life as a sober alcoholic takes shape, her ties to Julian disintegrate and her bond with Michael intensifies. She ends the book feeling hopeful about their future as a couple, especially if she continues to stay sober, grow and mature, and address problems rather than avoiding them.

Elaine is a neighbor of Knapp’s who gets drunk in a messy way. When she’s intoxicated, she cries and laments how she’s stuck in a relationship with a married man. Elaine feels powerless to change her circumstances and can’t see that she has choices, largely because alcohol has robbed her of her sense of agency. Disorderly and dramatic, Elaine comes much closer to the “booze-hound” stereotype of an alcoholic than Knapp ever does. This helps Knapp rationalize and minimize her own alcoholic behavior: if a person with alcoholism looks and behaves like Elaine, then Knapp can’t possibly be one. Her drinking isn’t as bad as Elaine’s, so therefore it isn’t a problem.