Donald Trump Jr says he 'can't drink in moderation' and was impacted by alcoholic uncle Fred Trump Jr's death
Donald Trump Jr has revealed in his new book 'Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us' how he and his father, Donald Trump, gave up alcohol after the death of their uncle Fred Trump Jr. Fred Trump Jr died at the age of 42 after suffering from complications of alcoholism. At the time, Trump Jr was three years old.
"Once I got going, it wasn't easy to stop me, which, when you're in college, isn't a huge problem, as long as you’re getting your work done,” Trump Jr wrote in the book, adding, "But once I started thinking about a career and a life beyond school, it was. To be honest, I didn't know how to drink in moderation.” His problem with drinking started when he was in his college days when he was attending the University of Pennsylvania.
After finishing college, he moved to Aspen, Colorado, and he writes that the partying ways kept on as he worked as a bartender at The Tippler. "I have an all-or-nothing personality; just ask anyone who knows me. Being compulsive works for some things - give me a job to do, and I'm going to get it done - but it's not so good for vices,” he wrote.
His father also gave up alcohol after the death of Fred. Tony Schwartz, co-author with Trump of 'The Art of the Deal', a 1987 bestseller has said that apart from being in control of the situation, it made him feel "weak and vulnerable in any circumstance" and it felt like a risk. Tim O'Brien, the author of Trump Nation, has added that Trump feared that alcohol would set him on the same path as his brother.
"I think he’s scared of the effects alcohol can have on people because he witnessed first-hand how it destroyed his brother’s life, and I think he’s a teetotaller because he’s scared of it in himself. He’s essentially Mr Id, and if Mr Id became an alcoholic, all bets are off," Brien has said.
Trump Jr said the family prided themselves on willpower and that he "would come to find that it was easier for me to ignore alcohol than it was to try to control it." "Eventually, I would give up drinking for good," he wrote.
In an interview in 2015, Trump had said, “He was a great guy, a handsome person. He was the life of the party. He was a fantastic guy, but he got stuck on alcohol. And it had a profound impact and ultimately [he] became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism. He would tell me, ‘Don’t drink ever’ He understood the problem that he had and that it was a very hard problem.”