Give up Like a Lady: The Radical Option to Not Drink in a Tradition Obsessive about Alcohol

A personal journey of recovery offered, and explained.
My first book finished in 2020.I preordered this in August or September and then forgot about it. In the meantime I had stopped drinking. This showed up on my doorstep yesterday, the last day of the (my drunkest) decade.My story closely parallels the authors (especially through high school and college) except for the fact that I actually used to work in the alcoholic beverage industry for several years, I even went back to school for it. I lived and breathed and ate and slept alcohol for years. One day over a month ago I took a sip of (not good) wine and a thought popped into my head, “why am I doing this?” I poured it out. Read a book instead. Went to the gym the next morning. Enjoyed my kale stir-fry. All the things we do to keep ourselves healthy…Like the author I also tried twelve-step programs and every form of self-help possible. The only thing that really, truly stuck was asking “why am I doing this?” Why am I doing ALL THE THINGS for my health but I’m still pouring poison into my body? Is this habit helping me reach my best life? Do I really care about the social capital of being “good at wine” so much that I am willing to sabotage my health for it?Finally the answer is no, I’m not. Holly Whitaker will explain further.If you have ever even had an inkling or question around your “relationship” with alcohol, you must read this book. It is certainly geared towards Gen Y, millennial and Gen X career-aged women (ages 18-45), but this is the “truth to power” book we need as a culture. Yes, alcohol is having a tobacco moment. And it’s long overdue.Thank you, Holly, for putting our collective story into such powerful, undeniable language, backed up with science and underlined with your incredibly relatable personal story.-For those confused about the “political” frame up for this book in the first few chapters, and thus compelled to rate the book a low rating based purely on a differing understanding from the author’s of current events, please read Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States,” or watch John Oliver explain the opioid crisis and the Sackler family on the HBO show Last Week Tonight.“Politics,” or rather the historical domination of everything by, power seeking/protecting and privilege of WASP men is a salient underlying factor for many (bad) American habits related to capitalism – smoking, drinking, overweight, pain killers the list goes on – to the detriment of the poor, minorities, women and children.Anyone see the pics of Jeff Bezos hulking around St. Bart’s over the holidays? Asking for a friend.I do believe a more thorough exploration of the issue of exploitation of the poor, the working class, women and minorities (men are including in most of the above groups) for the gross profit of a few men at the top the substance industries would have benefitted this book, but really it’s a separate book (Holly, would you?).Readers, if you are curious to come at this very large, complex (though not really complex) issue from another angle you can try Marion Nestle’s “Food Politics,” or Joseph Stieglitz’s “Globalization and its Discontents.”Or watch Mad Men. Or a Weinstein Brothers or Woody Allen movie… whatever.I mean, I don’t know what you’re into.The more things change the more they stay the same. If you’re pointing at “politics” you’re not really trying.Holly is simply asking everyone to reframe why we all starting getting schlitzed in the first place (or really, why we do any bad/addictive habit – like compulsively check social media) – and her research and experience points to the exploitative capitalism that has historically been the exclusive domain of WASP men.That’s just her, but it’s also a good place to start.-For those of you confused about Holly’s rejection and criticism of 12 Step Programs (of which I share), I point you to page 249-250:Holly has just publicly outed her recovery on her blog (that is, used her real name). “After reading those essays, a friend of mine—a daughter of a man who’d recovered through AA—wrote me a note. It said in effect: /You seem to be in pain, your family seems to be in pain, maybe you should work the Twelve Steps, my father did that, it helped my family./ At this point, I’d been working on myself and towards sobriety for 16 months, and it was going, by all accounts, pretty well. Further, in this recovery, this woman hasn’t once asked me how it was going, what was happening in my world, how I was saving my life, or how she could help. She was a spectator; one who read a few blogposts, interpreted them through her lens…and decided she understood the missing course of action in my f*cked-up life, which led to her unsolicited advice about my recovery.”This is evangelicalism by another name. Have you heard about the 12 Steps (Jesus Christ)? Yep. Doesn’t work for me. Didn’t work for Holly. Doesn’t work for a lot of people. AND THAT’S FINE. Everything Holly posits in this book as a recovery tool DID work for me and it DID work for Holly and countless other women, minorities, or other groups of people (the majority of people in the US) who are not of an white male evangelical bent. You need to do what most makes sense for you, people. Bruce Lee and Kung Fu your life – keep what works, toss what doesn’t. It is criticism but only insomuch as that is her (and many other people’s) reality. It’s a needed criticism so that others like me can realize we have different options, and that may help many people reach a place of recovery FASTER.—As Holly says, there should be a fourth (or fifth, or sixth) position of recovery and that is: “I am human, and being human is a messy affair with lots of twists, turns, and in-betweens.”Exactly.Good luck to everyone wherever they are at using whatever method works for them.

A necessary and important book blowing up the discussion around alcohol, addiction, and recovery
I anticipated this book coming out for quite some time (I’ve been following the author through her blog for the past few years) and I have to admit that it surpassed my expectations. Not only is the tone of the book and the way the author writes hilarious and incredibly engaging, the way that she pulls apart, looks at, and fleshes out this incredibly complex and emotionally fraught topic has left me with so much to consider and contemplate on my end.Not only is this a very thorough and in-depth look at a very big topic – addiction – that overlaps with so many other areas in life (neurobiology, psychology, sociology, family systems, history, and more), it is also the story of a woman who woke up in the depths of absolute hell and found a way to claw herself out of it. It’s a triumphant, inspiring, and empowering story.I can feel my perspective on alcohol shifting as I further metabolize and sit with this book. The author offers such a new, refreshing, and interesting perspective on the topic of alcohol, especially as it relates to us as women in this culture. You know how at a certain point you feel like you’ve read enough and thought enough about a certain topic (and for a lot of us, this can definitely happen when we are reflecting on and ruminating about our relationship with alcohol…). But even though I’ve followed the author over the years, she has offered up a wealth of new information and perspectives in this book. Like I said, it has surpassed my expectations on that level.As can be anticipated, this book is not going to make a lot of people happy. It’s going to infuriate some. For as many times as the author states (in the book, on her blog, social media, and elsewhere) that her work is not an attack on AA, it’s an attempt to expand the conversation on alcohol and addiction, people are still going to see it that way. Which is very interesting. My perspective on 12-Step Recovery has always been fairly neutral. But with the vehemency of the attacks from the 12-Step community that the author has received in the course of presenting her work over the years, it’s hard not to see the overlap between 12-Step Recovery and cult-like thinking. The more the 12-Step community attacks the author’s work, the more my respect grows for how much courage it must have taken to put it out into the world.So get the book. You will not be disappointment. You will find an a compassionate and fierce ally in the author. The work will not only expand your thinking around the reality of alcohol for women, it’s also a really great and engaging read. Highly, highly recommend.

This book explains addiction in a way which is easily understood. A must read for any woman or man that wants to better understand addition. The author has done her research and also speaks of her battle with addition. An easy read.

Exellent