Knapp portrays her parents, especially her father, as somewhat cold and distant. In contrast, she highlights alcohol’s warming effects. In many cases, warmth symbolizes comfort and safety. As liquor enters her body, it feels “warming and protective” (10). She observes how the house felt warmer and more conducive to human connection once her father had consumed a few martinis. She also recalls the relief that accompanies alcohol’s warming sensation, noting that, as an alcoholic, you’re “always so relieved to drink that first drink and feel the warming buzz in the back of your head, always so intent on maintaining the feeling, reinforcing the buzz, adding to it” (57).

Knapp uses dancing to symbolize certain patterns that characterize addiction, as well as the concept of allowing the body to perform without listening to everything the mind is saying. She addresses this concept of separating the mind and body when saying that she “turned to liquor the way a dancer turns toward music: it felt central to […] my ability to shut down the voices of self-criticism in my own head and simply let go, move to a different kind of music” (87). Later, Knapp notes how addictions:

segue into one another with such ease: a bout of compulsive overeating fills you with shame and sexual inferiority, which fills you with self-loathing and doubt, which leads you to a drink, which temporarily counters the self-hatred and fills you with chemical confidence, which leads you to sleep with a man you don’t love, which leads you circling back to shame (137).