Student
Professor
English date Jerry and Molly and Sam
Growing up is a mandatory part of life and can be very overwhelming. There are situations and circumstances that can shape someone’s future and impact their life. These events can either be positive or negative. One event that has a negative impact on a person’s life is alcoholism. It changes the very essence of the family. The short story “Jerry and Molly and Sam” is about the main character Al and his family. The story reads as if the world is crashing down on Al with his personal and uncontrollable problems (Harrison 15). He is a severely depressed alcoholic (16). When his life starts spiraling out of control due to a turn of events, he puts blame on everyone else, expect himself. Alcoholism and depression do not mix and can ultimately break up a family. Al came very, very close to losing his. Alcoholism and depression doesn’t only effect Al, but his whole family as well. When Al was in fear of being laid off by his job, worried about financial issues, having an affair with a lonely woman, and issues with the new family pet, he turns to excessive drinking (18). During all of these events he never made himself accountable for these problems. So, he used the family dog, Suzy, as a scapegoat. He is doing this to Suzy only because he needed someone to blame and to take his frustration out on. Suzy was the easiest target because she was defenseless. Al is displacing his anger and resentment from his seemingly out of control life onto the dog. He decides to get rid of Suzy and drop her off in a random neighborhood (22). These rash decisions not only affect him, but his whole family. His wife disapproves of his drinking and suspects him of cheating, but instead of trying to fix things the right way he just blames the dog (23). Many alcoholics make up excuses for what they are doing instead of dealing with