Drinking: A Love Story

For anyone it’s an alcohol problem

My headline is stunned because I finished this book last night (only after a couple days of starting it) and was left feeling stunned, on so many levels. Stunned by what this woman was capable to put down on paper, by what she was able to recall and translate into words so flawlessly. Stunned that I found so much in common, and therefore so much peace in the fact that this person exists and found a way out. I have always been fascinated by addiction, since early childhood, watching my own mother toil with just about anything she could get her hands on. The self-loathing and anger that preceded. Day by day, and year by year I have turned into that. I have used drinking for just about every emotion and circumstance that life can throw at you and now that I want out, I am not sure how much of anything has truly been 'dealt' with.I am one of those women who seem to hold it together, much like Caroline, I have kept steady employment and even managed to impress a person or two along the way. I have raised 2 teenage boys that seem to be finding their way just fine and now an infant daughter that challenges me and keeps me wanting more out of life. More connection. I have a home, my bills are paid, I have a car etc. etc. etc. What I don't have is any understanding of how I got here, so dependent and insistent on being someone I am not. Joy, something I used to think came at the bottom of my white wine glass. Little did I know, it only robbed me of just that.Something I found really cool about this book is how ridiculously easy she made it to read, the stories all flowing and intertwined. Going forward and back with such fluency that you don't even realize you're putting it all together as you go and it makes seamless sense at every turn.Thank you Caroline, seriously you are meant to be a writer I was meant to open your book. Thank you for sharing your story with such transparency and preciseness, thoughtfulness and intent. HIGHLY recommend, even if you have only thought once "Am I drinking too much?"

Ein Jammer, dass es dieses Buch in Deutsch nur mehr gebraucht gibt.Da ich damit offensichtlich unvermeidliche, teils unverschämte preisliche Exzesse für "top" Exemplare nicht zu zahlen bereit bin, mir zudem der Einband dieses Taschenbuches zusagt, verordnete ich mir - eher notgedrungen - ein paar Englisch-Übungsstunden.Ergebnis:Das Buch "zieht" ungemein, hebt sich damit nach meinem Empfinden sehr angenehm von anderen Selbsterfahrungsberichten ab. Was (für mich) schon im, wie ich finde, überrraschenden wie treffenden Ansatz liegt, mit dem die Autorin ihre (Liebes-)"Beziehung" zum Alkohol beschreibt. Also die psychische Ebene. Von genau dieser habe ich in anderen Erfahrungsberichten Abhängiger, bei denen mehr der physische Aspekt im Fokus stand, eben nicht gelesen.Suchttherapeuten werden bestätigen, dass gerade die psychische Seite die entscheidendere ist: Rein körperlich ist eine Entgiftung in wenigen Tagen überstanden. Die Auseinandersetzung mit den (seelischen) Gründen, die überhaupt erst dazu führten, eine "Liebesbeziehung" mit dem Alkohol einzugehen (und aus dieser auszusteigen und eben nicht rückfällig zu werden), kann Jahre dauern.Und diese Gründe (und auch die Fassaden bzw. die Wirklichkeiten hinter den Fassaden) können so ganz andere sein, als man gemeinhin annehmen möchte. Und es mag erschrecken, wie sehr man sich als Leser, wenngleich - vielleicht nicht oder gerade eben doch abhängiger als gedacht - wiederfindet im Text. Stichwort: Hunger nach Liebe, nach Wärme. Liebe aus der Flasche...(Wenn man bedenkt, wann und wo überall zur Flasche gegriffen wird, muss der Hunger nach Liebe in der Welt, in Deutschland, groß sein?)Das Buch macht - wie Alkohol für Alkoholiker... ;-) - also beim "Konsumieren" Hunger auf mehr, auf die nächste Seite. Was die Motivation erhöht, trotz Fremdsprache dranzubleiben, und mit gutem Schulenglisch sehr ordentlich gelingt, die wesentlichen Beschreibungen und Beweggründe sind gut zu erfassen und wirken nach.Wie allerdings trotz und mit Praxis im Job erfahren, ist und bleibt Muttersprache Muttersprache. Feinheiten gehen also tendenziell verloren, will man nicht häufiger durch begleitende Dictonary-Lektüre den Lesefluss unterbrechen.Alles in allem ein fesselndes Buch mit psychischem Erkenntnisgewinn. Als fremdsprachliche Übung zu empfehlen. Und evtl. bei Habhaftwerden eines guten und bezahlbaren Gebrauchtexemplares oder Neuauflage in Muttersprache ein zweites Lesen wert.

A young girls struggle not to see and accept the obvious...... A good read for anyone with a drinking story, about the dishonesty to oneself first and to others, family, partners and friend. How it destroys everything........... Good read..... to acceptance that leads you down a long way away from who you really are. A book about wasting yourself and all your relationships and work, health. The end is death. Read this book and do something before you have no desire left to end the addiction. Read "Rational Recovery" after finishing this book..........

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!