We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at work events, lunches, book clubs and weddings. Yet no one ever questions alcohol´s ubiquity. In fact, the only thing ever questions is why people don´t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some sort of magic elixir. It is anything but.
When Holly Whitaker started to look for a way to recover, the support systems she found for recovery where archaic and patriarchal. Urging drinkers towards a newfound humility is great if you´re a man, but if you´re a woman and not in a position to renounce privileges you never had, a whole other approach is needed.
She embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What´s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before.
Honest, witty and trenchant, Quit Like a Woman is at once a ground-breaking look at drinking culture, a call to arms, and a celebration of learning how to claim everything life has to offer.