You Left Early

Lisa Smith was a bright young lawyer at a prestigious law firm in New York City when alcoholism and drug addiction took over her life. What was once a way she escaped her insecurity and negativity as a teenager became a means of coping with the anxiety and stress of an impossible workload. Girl Walks Out of a Bar explores Smith's formative years, her decade of alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, and her road to recovery.

At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten lands in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey Jr. are immediately dashed by grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. When Augusten is forced to examine himself, he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life - and live it sober. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a Higher Power

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.

It's such a savage thing to lose your memory, but the crazy thing is it doesn't hurt one bit. A blackout doesn't sting or stab or leave a scar when it robs you. Close your eyes and open them again. That's what a blackout feels like. For Sarah Hepola, alcohol was 'the gasoline of all adventure'. She spent her evenings at cocktail parties and dark bars where she proudly stayed till last call. Drinking felt like freedom, part of her birthright as a strong, enlightened 21st-century woman.

When Kristi stopped drinking, she started noticing things. Like when you give up a debilitating habit, it leaves a space, one that can’t easily be filled by mocktails or ice cream or sex or crafting. And when you cancel Rosé Season for yourself, you’re left with just summer, and that’s when you notice that the women around you are tanked - that alcohol is the oil in the motors that keeps them purring when they could be making other kinds of noise. In her sharp, incisive debut essay collection, Coulter reveals a portrait of a life in transition.

It’s the nagging question more and more of us are finding harder to ignore, whether we have a “problem” with alcohol or not. In the face of how we care for ourselves otherwise, it’s hard to avoid how alcohol really makes us feel: terrible. How different would our lives be if we stopped drinking on autopilot? If we stopped drinking altogether? Frank, funny, and always judgment-free, Sober Curious is a bold guide to choosing to live hangover-free, from Ruby Warrington, one of the leading voices of the new sobriety movement.  

Brenda Wilhelmson was like a lot of women in her neighborhood. She had a husband and two children. She was educated and made a good living as a writer. She had a vibrant social life with a tight circle of friends. She could party until dawn and take her children to school the next day. From the outside, she appeared to have it all together. But, in truth, alcohol was slowly taking over, turning her world on its side.

In the tradition of Orange Is the New Black and Jerry Stahl's Permanent Midnight, Amy Dresner's My Fair Junkie is an insightful, darkly funny, and shamelessly honest memoir of one woman's battle with all forms of addiction, hitting rock bottom, and forging a path to a life worth living.

I'm the binge-drinking health reporter. During the week, I write about Australia's booze-soaked culture. At the weekends, I write myself off. Born and raised in Scotland, the home of whisky, Jill Stark had booze in the blood. Alcohol had dominated her social life ever since she had her first sip of lager, at 13. She thought nothing could curb her love of big nights. Then came the hangover that changed everything. In the shadow of her 35th year, Jill made a decision: she would give up alcohol.

Sober Stick Figure is a memoir from stand-up comedian Amber Tozer, chronicling her life as an alcoholic - starting with her first drink at the age of seven - and her eventual recovery. Amber writes about the crazy and harsh truths of being raised by alcoholics, becoming one herself, stagnating in denial for years, and finally getting sober.

Like many women, Clare Pooley found the juggle of a stressful career and family life a struggle, so she left her successful role as a managing partner in one of the world's biggest advertising agencies to look after her family. She knew the change wouldn't be easy, but she never expected to find herself an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day and spending her evenings Googling 'am I an alcoholic?'

Ever sworn off alcohol for January and found yourself drinking by the 7th? Think there's 'no point' in just one drink? Welcome! There are millions of us. This inspirational, aspirational and highly relatable narrative champions the benefits of sobriety with a three-pronged approach combining the author's personal experience; factual reportage and contributions from expert sources; and self-help advice for anyone who wants to reduce their alcohol intake or eliminate it completely.

It’s your body.... It’s your mind.... It’s your choice.... If you’re reading this right now, you’re questioning how much you drink. Maybe you know you drink way too much, and you want to quit. Or maybe you’re just curious. You’re questioning whether you might be overdoing it a bit. No matter where you are on the drinking spectrum, you’re not alone. I’ve been there. And thousands of people inside the This Naked Mind community have been there, too....

An unflinching and hilarious memoir about recovery as a mother of young kids, Bottled explains the perils moms face with drinking and chronicles the author's path to recovery, from hitting bottom to the months of early sobriety - a blur of pain and chaos - to her now (in)frequent moments of peace. Punctuated by potent, laugh-out-loud sarcasm, Bottled offers practical suggestions on how to be a sober, present-in-the-moment mom, one day at a time, and provides much needed levity on an issue too often treated with deadly seriousness.

Before meth, Sheff's son, Nic, was a varsity athlete, honor student, and award-winning journalist. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who stole money from his eight-year-old brother and lived on the streets. With haunting candor, Sheff traces the first warning signs, the attempts at rehabilitation, and, at last, the way past addiction. He shows us that, whatever an addict's fate, the rest of the family must care for one another, too, lest they become addicted to addiction.