Lauren called my mother while I was in London yesterday. Among other things, she asked whether I was drinking a lot. A bit surprised, my mother told her I was drinking moderately, as I always do. Forever in search of an explanation she would be able to understand, Lauren sporadically complains of my heavy drinking. This is something her friends and relatives, most of whom are in California, can fully appreciate from their own experience. Having grown up familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous on account of her mother, a prodigious addict of each and every substance she could possibly abuse, Lauren always looks for similar, if not the same, set of causes, effects, and remedies of family trouble. Surprisingly, especially in this connection, she cannot see the obvious: the trials and tribulations of her childhood are at least partly to blame for our own calamitous marriage.