Imagine an ordinary living room–chairs, couch, coffee table, a TV set, and in the middle, a large, gray elephant! The elephant stands there, shifting from one foot to another and slowly swaying from side to side. Imagine also the people that live in this house, you along with your mother and father and maybe some sisters and brothers. People have to go through the living room many times a day, and you watch as they walk through it very carefully around the elephant. No one ever says anything about the elephant. Everyone avoids the swinging trunk and just walks around it. Since no one ever talks about the elephant, you know that you’re not supposed to talk about it either. And you don’t. But sometimes you wonder why nobody says anything or why no one does anything to move the elephant. After all, it’s a very big elephant, and it’s very hard to keep walking around it all the time, and people are getting very tired. You wonder if maybe there is something wrong with you, but you just keep wondering, keep walking around it, keep worrying and wishing there was somebody to talk to about the elephant. Living in a family where chemical dependence is a problem is a lot like living with an elephant in the living room. There was a large, gray elephant in our living room when I was growing up, and we all tried to ignore it. As an adult, I can talk about it; the elephant was