Drinking: A Love Story
 

I just noticed there is a book club forum here at SR, this book is highly recommended:

Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp

It looks really good, there is an excerpt here:
eBooks.com - Drinking: A Love Story eBook
Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.


I loved the way drink made me feel, and I loved its special power of deflection, its ability to shift my focus away from my own awareness of self and onto something else, something less painful than my own feelings. I loved the sounds of drink: the slide of a cork as it eased out of a wine bottle, the distinct glug-glug of booze pouring into a glass, the clatter of ice cubes in a tumbler. I loved the rituals, the camaraderie of drinking with others, the warming, melting feelings of ease and courage it gave me.

Our introduction was not dramatic; it wasn't love at first sight, I don't even remember my first taste of alcohol. The relationship developed gradually, over many years, time punctuated by separations and reunions. Anyone who's ever shifted from general affection and enthusiasm for a lover to outright obsession knows what I mean: the relationship is just there, occupying a small corner of your heart, and then you wake up one morning and some indefinable tide has turned forever and you can't go back. You need it; it's a central part of who you are...

Hi Azure - yes, I've read it and I thought it was great!

I read this book, and I thought it was a very good "inside view" of a "functioning" alcoholic. Caroline Knapp does an excellent job of describing the subjective experience of living that way.

Not being a woman myself, I also found the female perspective on this interesting.

She also describes her experiences with rehab and with AA afterwards.

I am not sure how much appeal it would have to those who are not themselves boozers, but I suspect it would also appeal to those who like the "memoir" genre.

I think this book is amazing, and it really made me step back and say, if she could do this, so could I. She is brutally honest in her writing.

Sadly, Caroline died in 2002 at age 42 from cancer. But, she wrote another book "A Pack of Two" about her post-rehab bonding with her dog and the intense feelings that we have for our beloved pets.

Just ordered it....:bananadan

lucky my library had it, I can't put it down, so good

This is on my list of "want to read". I only know one person that didn't like it, and heard have a dozen others that spoke very highly about it.

I can only speak for myself, but although I suffer from both alcoholism and addiction with most of my life suffering primarily from addiction, I get a lot out of books that deal only with one of the two conditions.

I identified very much with her story - it was one of the books that helped me find the gumption to give sobriety a go :)

D

What Dee said.

This book gave me the courage to see myself as a person with a problem. She showed me that there was a path to becoming a better happier person through recovery.

I thought I couldn't be a drunk because I was so "functional" on the outside. She put exact words to how I was feeling on the inside--a terrified, scared, self-loathing mess--but couldn't own up to because I felt guilty about it.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. :)

She was a great writer... honest. Love this story! It's one of my favorites now. So sad that she passed away from cancer. Haven't read her dog book yet.

There is also "dry" by Augusten Boroughs. More from a male perspective. I liked both.

Others have mentioned that one. I put both his memoirs on my Amazon wish list. His sound really entertaining :)

Her dog book was good too.

I found Dry entertaining, but I found I treated it like fiction - it didn't reach me like Knapps book did.

D

Thanks for the tip: I just ordered it from my local library. Can't wait to read it.

I listened to this 5 times (the author recorded it for books on tape).
very good, my fav recovery book.