I still remember the day, June 2, 2013, when my cousin committed suicide due to alcohol. This is not the first time that alcoholism has taken a member of my family. I lost my uncle ten years ago to the same things, but crashing his truck into a tree. Like Scott Russell Sanders, my family suffered from the pain and illness caused by alcohol. Although Sanders' case is very different from mine, my family is more unknown until suddenly one of its members disappears. In Sanders' essay, "Under the Influence: Paying the Price for My Father's Liquor," he talks about growing up around him, his father's life being taken, and his life now. Sanders was a young boy when his father became an alcoholic. He remembers going into the shed and finding bottles of all kinds of alcoholic drinks that his father was trying to hide from them. He talks about how he remembers his father pulling into the driveway and stopping with what they were doing to watch him stumble past the barley on his way to the front door. He remembers his father and mother fighting where he heard his mother crying horribly from the front door. words that her husband had said to her. “Finally, he wakes up with a growl, Mother accuses him, he growls back, she screams, he growls, their voices collide” (182). Sanders' father would never hit his wife or Sanders. Sanders would do anything he could to help his father not drink. Every time they went to the gas station, he tried to go wherever his father went to make sure he didn't buy anything to get drunk. His father knew what he was doing, he would insult them to stay in the car or he would hit him. His father never hit him, but he always threatened him. Sand... middle of paper ...... e Sanders, trying to prove to themselves that they can be perfect in the way they think their parents would have been happy with them and not become an alcoholic. As I kept reading “Under the Influence: Paying the Price for My Father's Alcohol,” I began to realize that my cousin and my family were falling into the same situation as Sanders. This essay made me realize that my family is not the only one who has to face this difficulty throughout my life. Even though I'm not yet twenty-one, I know that I won't abuse alcohol like some people can, because I know that it can have a different effect on my body and mind than some people. I feel the same pain Sanders felt losing his father to alcohol. There's always a part of me that wishes I could talk to my cousin and my uncle and just ask them why, why did they do that?