Drinking: A Love Story

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!

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.

Caroline Knapp was at once a virulent alcoholic; addicted to nicotine; bulimic (for a while); promiscuous; unfaithful; and deceitful. In sum, Knapp was a mess of a person. At first scoffing at AA, and then finally embracing it, Knapp ultimately comes to grip with her alcohol addiction. She realized that, far from a palliative, alcohol was the cause of her problems. The book was written only about a year after Knapp quit drinking. Given the high rate of recidivism among alcoholics, it may have been a little premature to declare victory. Nevertheless, this is a well-written book, bleak but refreshingly forthright. Unlike Jack London in his memoir "John Barleycorn," Knapp readily admits being a true-blue alcoholic. London ludicrously denied he had an addiction, despite all evidence to the contrary. "Drinking: A Love Affair" is not interspersed with humor a la Sarah Hepola’s "Blackout;" it’s a poignant read. The great irony of the book comes when Knapp’s mother, in her deathbed and in an amazingly prescient moment, admonishes Knapp to “stop smoking.” Knapp insists that that was not what her mother meant to say, yet six years after the book was released, Knapp succumbed, not to alcohol poisoning, but lung cancer, a legacy of her multi-pack a day cigarette habit. Near the end of the book, Knapp, like London in "John Barleycorn," muses that maybe Prohibition would not be such a bad thing, at least ostensibly muting some of the temptations that alcoholics face. That of course is sophism: for every bar closed during the Prohibition, two or three speakeasies opened. "Drinking: A Love Affair" should be must reading for all AA members.

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..........

I'm always hesitant to read sobriety books that include promoting AA as the only way to stay sober and indeed Knapp was of the same opinion - even going to a meeting and deciding it wasn't for her for a number of years until going back. She doesn't 'bang the book' throughout and is quite honest about some of her compatriots who have recovered without AA.I have read many books on the addiction subject and where Frey's 'A million little pieces' is sensationalised, this strikes the reader as pure honesty. Knapp writes so well you begin to think of her as a heroine. She does not have the many crazy antics most alcoholics have gone through (although she is a lifelong drunk driver) but she is pointed enough to understand that for her, the cheating lieing and coverups is as bad as any car wreckThis is a fantastic inspiring read.

Drinking：　A　Love　Storyというタイトルだけ見ると、小説かなと思われるかもしれません。図書館の洋書コーナーで面白そうな題名の本を手当たり次第に手に取っていた時に出会いました。まさに、依存症の出口を求めて沢山の本に逃げていた時に。私自身は食べ物依存症(吐かない過食症）の大学生です。悲しみ・緊張・疲れといった全ての不快に対する感覚を食べることで鈍らせて生きています。Knappは元アルコール依存症者です。拒食症も経験しAA(アルコール依存者匿名会）にも参加し同様な経験をもつ人々と語り合った内容を交えつつ書かれたのが本書です。アルコール依存症の要因を精神分析的に捉える従来の見方から脳科学･遺伝的考察まで加えています。それは教育を受けたアメリカ人でジャーナリストという彼女の科学と論理性を強調する背景により実現されています。しかしながら依存症に依存することをやめるために客観的であろうと苦しみもがいた故の結晶といえると思います。前作アリス･Kは翻訳されていますが本書は｢アルコール依存症者｣が一見対象な特殊な本に見えるためか未だ翻訳が出ていません。でも私自身が訳したいほどに、生き方に悩む人・特に女性にお勧めの本です。Knappは本書によって彼女やその友人の経験を語りかけることで共有し、一つの自助形態を実現しています。最後に本書から貰った、一番の助言を。"...strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things, but from the simple accumulation of active experience, from gritting the teeth and checking the items off the list, one by one, even though it's painful and you're afraid."