Drinking Games
A Memoir
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- €10.99
Publisher Description
Named Most Anticipated by: Good Morning America ・ New York Post・Pure Wow ・BuzzFeed ・ Los Angeles Times ・ Book Riot・ Apple Books
Part memoir and part social critique, Drinking Games is about how one woman drank and lived— and how, for her, the last drink was just the beginning.
On paper, Sarah Levy’s life was on track. She was 28, living in New York City, working a great job, and socializing every weekend. But Sarah had a secret: her relationship with alcohol was becoming toxic. And only she could save herself.
Drinking Games explores the role alcohol has in our formative years, and what it means to opt out of a culture completely enmeshed in drinking. It’s an examination of what our short-term choices about alcohol do to our long-term selves and how they challenge our ability to be vulnerable enough to discover what we really want in life.
Candid and dynamic, this book speaks to the all-consuming cycle of working hard, playing harder, and trying to look perfect while you’re at it. Sarah takes us by the hand through her personal journey with blackouts, dating, relationships, wellness culture, startups, social media, friendship, and self-discovery.
In this intimate and darkly funny memoir, she stumbles through her twenties, explores the impact alcohol has on relationships and identity, and shows us how life’s messiest moments can end up being the most profound.
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"At twenty-eight, I looked like I had it all together," Levy writes about her destructive relationship with alcohol in her bracing debut. A 16-year-old Levy experienced her first blackout at a house party in suburban New Jersey, which she recalls as "shameful" but also "a bit thrilling." After a newly single Levy moved to New York City at 22, alcohol was a fixture in her life ("I came to view vodka as an extension of my new personality"), and though the frequency of Levy's blackouts increased, she didn't think she had a "real" problem until the nearly 30-year-old author woke up in bed next to her boss's best friend with no memory of how she'd gotten there. The author's insightful account of her path to sobriety takes in the full sweep of her experience, from discovering in recovery meetings a sense of community that wasn't contingent on her job title, to concluding that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with addiction: "Twelve-step programs are not the only way to get sober." Though the narrative can be repetitive, it nevertheless offers equal measures of introspection and hope: "Every day I wake up is an opportunity to start again." This emotional excavation will inspire anyone navigating addiction.