How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I looked at that bottle of cheap fake wine and saw things real clear, the way you see them just before you start to drink to get drunk: I would drink away my money and time and energy, and be a f***ed-up failure all through my twenties, probably hanging around the high school […] If I kept drinking I'd never leave Lightsburg. (2.83, 87)
Just as a friendly reminder, Karl is a teenage alcoholic, which is probably slightly worse than being a teenage werewolf. Therefore, the moment when he decides that drinking is only going to make him turn out like his parents and that he needs to quit is pretty pivotal to his story.
Quote #2
It always made Dad sick to see a boy cry. He said that all the time. He grabbed up the bottle from the table and went out to get drunk by himself on the back porch, like he did when he was really mad, muttering and swearing. (11.36)
Part of why Karl becomes an alcoholic is because, whether they mean to or not, his parents push it on him. For one thing, his dad leads a double life as the mayor by day and a raging drunkard by night. If getting drunk is his dad's defense mechanism for when the hooey hits the fan, it has to have rubbed off on his kid.
Quote #3
I didn't have much body weight then, and I'd had a bunch of drinks in less than an hour. So I was real drunk, which at least made the time pass faster; I sat on one end of the couch and watched a lady I didn't know set down her cigarette onto the carpet and grind it out with her boot heel. I wished all these people would go home and that Mom would come back from the bedroom, where she'd gone with Neil. (14.26)
Let's not blame everything on dad, though. After all, Karl's mom is the one who threw a party and invited Karl to come drink with everyone.