Let’s start by owning that I am totally biased because this was THE BOOK that I held onto when I was #sobercurious and in early sobriety. It spoke directly to my head, heart, and feminist political rage stewing undertow.
I mean, it has everything: The juicy, detailed, ugly, and relatable tell-all stories of a marriage crumbling, the extremely well-researched (Ann is an award-winning reporter) deep dive on how women in my generation bore the brunt of Big Alcohol and Big Ad companies getting into bed together, and the wily way Pink Washing took hold on so many women and mothers of the last four generations in particular.
This book hit it home for me – IT IS NOT ALL MY FAULT.
My biggest takeaway was this: Right when I was coming to the drinking age, the alcohol industry took strategic and intentional aim at female consumers. We were ambushed with Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Spritzers in fun colors, and flavored Absolut. Alcohol became gendered, and we were sold. It was f*cking feminist to keep up with the boys, and I bought into that narrative hook, line, and sinker for two decades.
Sidebar: In case you don’t know, alcohol is not metabolized the same in women: different hormonal baseline, different body composition, different body weights. So, keeping up was always doing me even MORE damage than my male peers were doing to their long-term health.
When Ann first got sober, she started clipping all the articles on women and alcohol, and the three titles that stood out to her then were not that different from the articles we all saw come out after the pandemic.
“First, New York magazine ran an excellent feature called “Gender Bender” in December 2008. The deck read: “More women are thinking, and the women who drink are drinking more, in some cases matching their male peers. This is the kind of equality nobody was fighting for.” I was one month sober. For the first time, I began to think: I am not alone.
Then, in July 2009, Diane Schuler made headlines when she drove her minivan the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway northwest of New York City. Schuler’s vehicle collided with an oncoming SUV, and eight people were killed, including Schuler’s five-year-old daughter and three nieces, all under ten. A successful account executive and married mother of two, Schuler died with undigested alcohol in her stomach; her blood alcohol was more than twice the legal limit. Police found a jumbo bottle of Absolut vodka in the crushed metal wreck of her vehicle.
Schuler’s story was horrific. I clipped it, but it wasn’t the one that hit home the hardest: I never drove when I was drinking.
No, the story that got under my rib cage ran less than a month later, in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, under the headline “A Heroine of Cocktail Moms Sobers Up.” Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, and Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, had quit drinking. The California mother of three known for her popular online column “Make Mine a Double: Tales of Twins and Tequila” had retired her corkscrew. Wilder-Taylor had announced her news on her popular mommy blog, Babyonbored, with this simple statement: “I drink too much. It became a nightly compulsion, and I’m outing myself to you…I quit on Friday.”
This line got me: *Whenever her husband questioned her nightly routine, she would retort, “I’m fine!”
My words exactly. Whenever I had too much to drink, this was my mantra: “I’m fine.” Teetering across pink granite in Lake Country late at night: “I’m fine.” Tossing off my high heels after a gala awards night: “I’m fine.” It was easy to say without slurring, and it was defiant. It never changed.
Except I wasn’t fine. Not even close. And it was beginning to look like I was not alone. As Wilder-Taylor said when I finally interviewed her: “Alcohol is glamorized in our society, and it’s everywhere. You’d be surprised how many people are drinking during the day. And then we’re shocked when some mother crashes her car with her kids in it?”
Pg. 61
*All three articles hit a little too close home when I first read Drink. I was starting to buy into Mommy Wine Culture as a new mommy, and one of the lines I swore I would never cross was drinking and driving – with my kids in the car. And as I mentioned, I was all about beating the gender-bender expectations.
Honestly, I have meant to re-read it for years, but something about my relationship to this book was just a little too fragile – I wasn’t ready to re-read it and rediscover the gold quite yet. Then, the universe presented me with an opportunity to e-meet Ann and even thank her personally for her life-changing piece of work. Her current wisdom is totally up to speed and exactly what I needed to hear after just finishing my certification as an Alcohol-Free Life Coach, “Never has there been a better time to get sober.” Wo(man), isn’t that the truth!
Another aspect that Ann threads throughout the book so well is how, as women, we buy into the romance of alcohol. The five-sense experience—the fancy bars, the fancy drinks, the expensive wine, the excitement, the ritual, the anticipation, the bubbly, the whiskey neat—is totally me. Although I never drank any colored hard liquor, you get the idea.
The market is exploding with alternative drink options, alternative ways of getting (and staying) sober, and alternative ways for women to find true empowerment. Just last weekend, I went to this fancy wine store with my husband and asked if there were any NA options just out of curiosity, and BAM, the whole front of the store was dedicated to options. Sober is the new black, more and more every year.
We at The Sober Curator are excited, and you should be, too. If you are on the fence, grab Ann’s book Drink and dive right in. Read the first two pages, one quote, and one poem because they will change your life.
The quote? I’ll give you:
Our excuses are the best clue we have to our own poverty, and our best way to concealing it from ourselves.”
Adam Phillips, British Psychoanalyst
Phew, right. I mean, who doesn’t feel psychoanalyzed with that bit of core wisdom?
The poem right after? You will have to buy the book – get a hard copy because you will want to curl up with it.
The Sobees #QUITLIT Score: 4.5 out of 5 Sobees
Ann Dowsett Johnston TEDx
THE SOBER CURATOR LIBRARY: We don’t just read books; we immerse ourselves in literary journeys, tune in on Audible, and craft insightful reviews. Our digital shelves are organized into three genres: #QUITLIT, Addiction Fiction, and Self-Help.
