ABSTRACT
The alcoholic family in the 1980s is now everybody's business. It is no longer (as it was in the classic period) a troubled site that can just be managed by the alcoholic, a spouse, a friendly doctor, God, an A. A. sponsor, and the A. A. group. The filmic alcoholic family in the 1980s will no longer sit still and let an alcoholic ruin his (or her) life and theirs. Nor will the courts. The film's decisive stance on the relationship between the court and the alcoholic family is given in the following exchange between Lyle and the judge. The family, collectively and individually, is confronted by a physician who tells them Noah is an alcoholic and they are an alcoholic family. The dominant ACOA themes that structured all but Tender Mercies, clearly establish different positions on the alcoholic family in the 1980s. As markers of the times, these films symbolize how far into society the disease called alcoholism can go.
