Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
I was forever Billy Hamill’s son, but I no longer wanted to be the next edition of Billy Hamill. He had his life and I had mine. If there were patterns, endless repetitions, cycles of family history, if my father was the result of his father and his father’s father, on down through the generations into the Irish fogs, I could no longer accept any notion of predestination. Someone among the males of this family had to break the pattern. It might as well be me. I didn’t have that drink. Twenty years have gone by, and I’ve never had one since.
