Drinking: A Love Story

This is one of my favorite book. If you’re struggling with alcoholism or know someone who is, this book offers beautiful insight into a deeply confusing topic. The authors vulnerability and authenticity shines, and it’s incredibly well written. A beautiful read.

This is a quiet but very powerful book. It is written by a professional woman (journalist) to record her long struggle with alcohol. It gives an amazing, in-depth insight into the thinking and feelings behind such an addiction. She is brutally honest about the ravages of living with an addiction - morning hangovers, always trying to get a drink, driving drunk, passing out, waking up in a strange bed with men and not knowing what happened that evening/night, always trying to sneak a way to get enough to drink. She strictly maintained some rules for herself - like never drinking at work - that allowed her to keep up her professional life and convince herself that she was not an alcoholic, only a heavy drinker. (The amount of alcohol is astonishing.) But what is most powerful in the book is how she manages, in retrospect, to see the WHY of drinking: to quell the anxiety and to stifle uncomfortable feelings. She points that out repeatedly as she examines different stages of her life. And it IS a love story in the sense that she truly loved to drink, particularly in the early years when a drink or two relaxed her and made everything warm and comfortable - no social anxiety, no worries, no inadequacies. Unfortunately that stage doesn't last long - it takes more and more booze to quiet things down and the result leaves havoc in its wake. Imagine having to inspect your car fenders in the morning to make sure you didn't hit or kill someone driving home in a drunken haze! Many alcoholics have "cross addictions" - pills, pot, eating disorders, dysfunctional relationships. These too give you the illusion of control and killing unwanted feelings. She went through several years of severe eating disorders - that too helped to deaden her feelings, and most of her relationships were a disaster. Gradually, by examining all those feelings that she was so terrified of she comes to see what she is trying to kill with alcohol. She is from a family of professionals who were cool and aloof. Underneath that calm was anger and unhappiness. She learned early not to show feelings though she longed for a connection with them and their approval. She truly loved her parents and their deaths from dreadful cancers at first spirals her into much heavier drinking (if that is possible) but finally helps her toward recovery. This is an amazingly insightful book about living with the types of feelings we all dread. It gives insight into the disease and even for those not dealing with addictions in themselves or those close to them, the penetrating analysis of how we humans deal with feelings is the best part of the book. After I read it I wanted to know more about Caroline Knapp. So I Googled her and was very touched by what I found. I won't spoil anything for you but there is another book (about her, not by her) that you will want to get!

I'd like to leave a more detailed review but don't have the time. Others have already done a great job of that anyway. Suffice to say I found this book very touching and affecting, especially knowing the tragedy of the author getting sober after going through hell, and dying within 5-6 years of lung cancer at only 42. Even as a regular smoker, for that to happen to her at such a young age, after such travail, is very sad. I assume the person she calls Michael in the book is really the long-time partner Mark she finally married just before expiring. More poignancy. I don't understand the negative comments regarding how she characterizes AA. Nor the ones dismissing her as privileged and narcissistic. These seem to me to totally miss the point of how this affliction can affect anyone. I took off one star only because it is true that it is very repetitive, often. Could have used some editing. Still worth reading. Hope you are in a good place Caroline ! I will remember you, even if a stranger.

Amazing story about a woman’s relationship with alcohol. Highly recommend.

As much as I loved this book, I doubt it will impress people who aren't alcoholic or dealing with an alcoholic. Had I read this book in college, I would probably have sympathized with her problems but ultimately thought she was simply flaky and needed to just stop doing the stupid things she describes - not that complicated. As it is, I read this book when I had become fully aware that my own relationship with alcohol had ceased to be simply "great when it's around - like a good meal" and begun to be compulsive. The absence of a drink became an 800 pound elephant in the room, and I noticed that at some point I had stopped enjoying being sober. For me, that was when I realized I had crossed a line and that drinking was no longer cute or funny. Somewhere along the way, it had managed to insinuate itself as the center of my life, even though I never would have admitted it out loud. My first thought when invited to a social event was whether alcohol would be served. My first thought when going out to a meal in the evening was whether they had a liquor license. I had mentally divided my friends into drinkers and non-drinkers, and I had managed to do so without believing there was anything weird about this. That is the subtle tug of alcoholism that Ms. Knapp exposes. To everyone around the alcoholic, it is obvious that there is a problem. To the alcoholic, he simply wants to suck the marrow out of life, and can't understand why people aren't with him. Yet, if pressed, most alcoholics will admit that their life stopped being happy right around the time they started drinking regularly (it is a depressant, after all. This shouldn't be surprising). They will have what Ms. Knapp describes as that "a-ha" moment when alcoholics consider the possibility - obvious to everyone else but new and original to them - that they do not drink because they are unhappy. They are unhappy because they drink. Ms. Knapp's book is ideal, and potentially life-saving, for the intelligent, highly-functioning alcoholic who has not yet done anything so stupid that they are forced to recognize what everyone else in their life probably knows. This book could be the catalyst that allows them to head their problems off at the pass, because alcoholism ONLY gets worse. There's a well-known speech about alcoholics in AA that includes a memorable phrase about what it feels like to be alcoholic - "the worst part is, people will never know how hard we tried". Many an alcoholic can identify with this - no matter how many times alcohol has kicked you, it is the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life to quit. Trust me on this and respect the next recovered alcoholic you meet. Had they had a choice, they would rather have walked across the Sahara. But they took a deep breath and tried to do the right thing for themselves and others. Like so many reviewers of this book, I regret that the author died before I could personally thank her for the insights this book provides. However, she is in my prayers, and I hope she's enjoying a very sober, happy existence with the same Higher Power that watched out for her here on earth.

This book is so well written, and is so honest and informative, it is perhaps the most compelling (and useful) story about addiction I've ever read. Caroline Knapp, an Ivy-League educated columnist and editor, shares the story of her slide into alcoholism and her road to recovery with brutal honesty. Her down-to-earth, conversational tone pulls you in, and paints a very credible picture of someone who goes beyond the singular, self-serving notion of merely writing a memoir. Recovery has brought out the best in her, and her writing is filled with gratitude and a deep sense of caring for the health of all those around her with or without addiction issues. The love story metaphor plays all the way through and works well. I particularly liked the way she continues the analogy through her recovery and labels her relationship with alcohol "a divorce." She not only divorced alcohol, for the first year she "took out a restraining order," and avoided "alcohol the way you'd avoid running into an ex-lover at a restaurant." Some of us have a difficult time understanding the disease of alcoholism and, more to the point, what goes on in the mind of an alcoholic or addict that keeps him/her on this self-destructive path. Knapp lays it bare. She comes across as someone you would want to know. I recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the nature of both the active alcoholic and the recovering alcoholic. These pages are like a 280+ AA meeting, offering insight, understanding--even comfort--and most importantly, honesty. Well done. From the author of "A Line Between Friends," McKenna Publishing Group.

Only good parts of this memoir are the times she gets drunk. While it is sad that she died at the age of 42 (of lung cancer no less; i'd have thought liver failure and cirrhosis would play a role, considering how much she put down in her life), all of these alcoholics had a choice to stop but for whatever reason, they were compelled to keep going. They talk about being on an elevator, going towards the bottom, and having the choice to get out when you want? They conveniently forget that they chose to get on the elevator, in the first place. But no matter. The true version of Miss Knapp (the un-inhibited nihilist who succumbed to that need for liquor on an almost daily basis), that version is the one that rings true for me. Wherever you are at this juncture, Miss Knapp, I'll raise a toast to you for living life the way you wanted to live it. To doing what you want! Drunk in front of your parents? Check. Drunk at the funeral of your parents? Check. Being able to say that you were in love with something once in your life ("better to have loved and failed, than to have never loved at all")? Check. And in response, I hope you keep on raising those glasses yourself and drinking down completely that which defines you.

Drinking Caroline Knapp Self Help - Recovery | Delta Trade Paperback | May 1997 14.95 | 0-385-31554-6 This is an update since writing the review below this one: Well, Amazon replaced the book with the missing pages and I have been amazed how riveting and absorbing the book is. The writer really knew how to draw you into her story and whether you are a drinker, an addict or just curious I sincerely recommend it as an educational and helpful read. If I were to place any criticism, it would be that some of the narratives ramble on in flowery or overly verbose descriptions, but still I would strongly recommend it as a good read. (Following is the old review before Amazon kindly replaced the book) I bought the book titled above for myself and a friend. On starting to read my copy I discovered that pages 17 to 48 are missing and replaced with pages 225 to 256. These pages are also in the right place later in the book thus duplicating them