Quit Like a Woman
The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol
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- 11,99 €
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- 11,99 €
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An unflinching examination of how our drinking culture hurts women and a gorgeous memoir of how one woman healed herself.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed
“You don’t know how much you need this book, or maybe you do. Either way, it will save your life.”—Melissa Hartwig Urban, Whole30 co-founder and CEO
The founder of the first female-focused recovery program offers a groundbreaking look at alcohol and a radical new path to sobriety.
We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.
When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, 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. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it.
Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
According to recovery expert Holly Whitaker, getting sober isn’t just good for women’s health—it can also help smash the patriarchy. As she details in this riveting memoir and self-help guide, Whitaker earned that wisdom the hard way. With barbed-wire wit, she’s got the courage to say what needs to be said—her blistering takedown of the male-centric, elitist roots of Alcoholics Anonymous points out that it’s not necessarily the best choice for every person trying to get sober. We ached at Whitaker’s stories about alcoholism that stretched back to her teens and took inspiration from her triumph. In between, we were wowed by her smart, plainspoken analysis of how politics and big business have historically manipulated social norms to keep women drinking and disempowered. Whitaker now runs her own recovery program, so when she talks about tapping into #MeToo-era momentum to start a sober female revolution, she’s coming from a place of personal strength. Whatever your gender, you’ll never think about drinking the same way again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alcohol is a poison, a drug "designed to keep us down," writes Whitaker, founder of the online Tempest Sobriety School, in this empowering mix of memoir and self-help aimed at women. A one-time binge drinker and "train wreck," Whitaker got sober at 33, quit her job at a healthcare startup, and dedicated herself to starting a recovery program that she sees as an alterative to Alcoholics Anonymous, which she calls a dated, white male centric program focused on ego and goals. She rejects the term "alcoholic" as a life-sentence label, and argues that women and other marginalized people need to be encouraged on their way to sobriety, not forced to repent and made to feel helpless around booze. Whitaker addresses what she sees as society's unhealthy relationship with alcohol and marketers' insidious ploys to make consumers think that drinking is normal ("we drink for fun the same thing we use to make rocket fuel, house paint, antiseptics"). A celebration of the nondrinking life, the narrative offers personal stories (such as making new friends while sober) and tips on managing one's recovery (find a therapist, snack healthily). Whitaker is an amiable narrator, and her book serves as a helpful resource for those who wish to eliminate alcohol from their lives, and who want a glimpse at how liberating not drinking can be.
