Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders

In the essay “Under the Influence,” Scott Russell Sanders uses metaphors and comparisons to describe his father’s drinking, and the connection of his excessive working and compares those two addictions. First, he talks in detail about his father’s excessive abuse of alcohol, emphasizing the transformation of this father every time he had a drink. Sander’s own daughter felt that he, too, housed an addiction, and eventually gave him a placard labeling him …

…daughter feels why he his addiction to work, and shows how his father’s addiction affected his childhood just as his own addiction can affect his daughters. He realizes that his father’s addiction has turned him into an addict himself, maybe not an alcoholic, but a workaholic. This comparison shows how ugly addiction can be, and makes the readers realize that no addiction is healthy, and they both have long-term effects on family life.