After a disappointing Christmas, Lisa learns ways to deal with her father's alcoholism with the help of her mother and an older friend.

As she starts seventh grade, twelve-year-old Hannah can no longer ignore her mother's increasingly erratic behavior caused by drinking.

When her true identity as a Hollywood starlet is revealed, seventeen-year-old Morgan Carter, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, must choose whether to return to her glamorous movie star existence or stick with the wholesome life, and the new love, she has found in the Midwest. Told in the form of diary entries.

Four siblings struggle to maintain a seminormal home life when their single mother's alcoholism becomes debilitating.

Seventeen-year-old loner Maggy Klass, who frequently seeks refuge from her alcoholic mother's apartment by sitting and drawing in a local cafe, becomes involved in a destructive relationship with a charismatic homeless youth named Cole.

Seventeen-year-old Stetson meets the sister he never knew he had, and together they try to make sense of their pasts.

When her father seems unable to stop drinking, Ellen decides to attend an Alateen meeting to help her cope with his alcoholism and her reactions to it.

Feeling as though he does not belong there, Tink leaves Crow Cove, only to return with the drunken Burd, who teaches Tink to fish and to have confidence in himself and his place in the community.