Alcoholism runs in my family too. My mother died driving drunk at age 47, so drunk I don't think she even remembered or recognized that I was in the car with her (I was 12 years old at the time). Seeing so many of my family dragged down by alcohol, I have mostly given it up. I share a bottle of wine occasionally with the woman, maybe once or twice a month. If more people would smoke pot instead of drink alcohol, there'd be a lot less misery in this world, I am convinced of that.

My big test was this year's Bonnaroo. Normally, I'm a social drinker; I'm shy around people, and drinking helps with that. But I decided to skip the drinking anyway, and I did it, the whole 4 days at Bonnaroo. Wasn't even hard, although I expected it to be. I guess I've gone so long without that crutch now that it doesn't bother me not to have it.

If you could convince your dad to give up drinking and turn to pot, he'd almost surely live a longer and happier life. Might be hard to convince him of that though.