The popular image of alcoholism is one of families devastated by violence and torn by dramatic conflict. The authors of this book paint a very different picture, offering powerful evidence that most chronic alcoholics live out their lives in intact, relatively quiet family environments. However, they show that living in an alcoholic family - one in which alcoholism is the central theme around which family life is organized - has profound effects on family members, both drinkers and nondrinkers, and that these effects can be carried from generation to generation in complex ways.