I would assume "walking drunk" means a functioning alcoholic, which is pretty much what Dean is now. And he doesn't have a problem doing his job.

Wasn't John drinking in Dead Man's Blood? While he's sitting at the desk talking to Sam? I might be remembering him holding the jar of blood at the end of the scene, though.

Basically--what evidence do we have that Sam's an unreliable narrator?

I don't think Sam is an unreliable narrator in a strict sense. I think even in the pilot he was still prone to emotional exaggeration, about John being drunk, etc., and I'd guess it was because he was startled and uneasy at Dean showing up not only in the middle of the night, but breaking in.

I also think, based purely on my reading of it, that John probably drank less than Dean did -- with two kids to care for, and apartments/housing to find, he would have had to. But I think he did drink, and Sam's remark about Jack, Jim, and Jose (or whatever it was) had more to do with recognizing that his dad drowned his grief and rage in alcohol instead of something emotionally healthier (aka normal).

Man, there's so much Show doesn't show us. I wonder if, with Dean's alcoholic levels, if he had a kid (I'm discounting his months with Ben, for some reason), if that kid would look back at Dean with contempt and bias and associate him most strongly with being drunk.

I think the difference is, though, that at least given his behavior with Sam, Dean is not passing out, or slurring, or falling down, or forgetting to pick him up, etc. That's the stuff, in my experience, that makes drinking = BAD for a lot of kids.

And nowhere in any season is it mentioned that he physically hit his kids. With the wholehearted hugging that went on when they did get together, I don't think they were physically afraid of him.

They were adults in their mid-to-late twenties; abject fear of having their hides tanned was probably a thing of the past. John was a blue collar ex-marine living in a high stress lifestyle, so I don't think quiet time outs are likely to have been a part of his parenting style. I'd imagine both kids were familiar with belt whippings.

Oh, I don't think so, Matt. I've been a parent for over twenty years, and I don't know anyone who would think of hitting their kids with a belt. A spanking, sure, but not a belt.

I think a lot of folks here are lucky to have been raised in a progressive environment where corporal punishment was seen as something near-mythical and only practiced in the Dark Ages or by ogres. I've been belt whipped, and John Winchester reads as a lot more of a strict disciplinarian to me than my Dad was.

So, my parents were basically hippies, and me and my older brother would make a game out of stealing one of our father's belts, folding it in half, and snapping it while the other screamed. Yes, the idea of being beaten with a belt was so silly and outlandish that we made a game out of it.

And now I feel like a jackass. Sorry, Matt.

I'd think John's form of punishment would be lunges until you puke or pushups until their arms gave out in muscle fatigue. The smoke-the-whole-pack-of-cigarettes-until-you-turn-green. Extra laps around the motel. Punishment that, in the end, makes you stronger (I went to basic with guys who didn't mind getting punished because they knew it would just make them better).

I'm sorry about that, Matt. My experience includes a lot of working class families, but maybe it has more to do with region or simply my generation.

Obviously I didn't grow up in parallel households with many of you, but although my parents would never hit us with belts, parents of friends disciplined them that way, and I did have the misfortune of one of them thinking their rules applied to me.

That was ha ha funny to go home and tell my parents about--it was a line they observed, but I knew a shitload of kids whose parents thought the belt was just fine, and all I considered myself was lucky--they were happy healthy intelligent kids who loved their parents and weren't afraid of them--they just had higher/different penalties for misbehaving.

I have realised that when I say I think John hit the boys that some people hear me saying he didn't love them, or they didn't love him and I'm absolutely not saying anything of the sort.

What do you say to someone who says their least favourite fanon is that John had sex after Mary's death?