Recommended Reading: Quit Like A Woman by Holly Whitaker

Quit Like A Woman: The Radical Choice To Not Drink In A Culture Obsessed with Alcohol

By Holly Whitaker

Sourced: Sandmeyer’s Bookstore Chicago, IL

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“Maybe it started as not wanting to deal with hangovers or the threat of premature death or even escaping the hole that is addiction, but … my effort turned into what it still is today: the process of building a life I don’t want, or need, to escape from.”
- Quit Like A Woman

                I’m spiteful by nature. It’s not my favorite thing about myself, but the thought of shoving a personal success in the faces of my enemies is what gets me out of bed in the morning. The proverbial haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate and my internal life has been a series of moments intended to prove them wrong. What’s that? The enemies exist only in my head? I should redirect myself to be driven by my own needs and desires rather than a compulsive need to be right while others are wrong? You sound just like my therapist.

                Luckily for me, “Quit Like A Woman” is perfectly compatible with this rather immature drive. Whitaker deconstructs the many factors of our society designed to increase our desire to drink and describes sobriety as an individual’s act of resistance. In an extremely paraphrased version of her arguments, the patriarchy wants us to spend all our money on a substance that will make us dumb and submissive. Drinking is our chosen self-oppression. The barrier between what we are and the fully realized potential of what we could be.

                Whitaker brashly rejects the troublingly generic diagnosis “alcoholic” and encourages the reader to ask themselves more specific questions about how alcohol fits into their lives. As she puts it, there is no definitive line a person crosses when they transform from casual drinker to alcoholic. Instead, she encourages the reader to ask “Is alcohol getting in the way of my happiness, my life, my self-esteem? Is it getting in the way of my dreams, or maybe just not working for me? Does it cost more than it gives, does it shrink more than it expands, does it cut pieces out of me I can’t reclaim? Does it make me hate myself, even just a little bit?”

                Reading this book gave me the focused courage to abstain from drinking through the Covid-19 pandemic. Knowing how much of my desire to drink was external helped me understand that I did not actually want to waste my newly acquired spare time being drunk.  Instead, I spent the long hours alone with myself (and, thank goodness, Rowena) building new habits. In the absence of drinking, I was forced to find other activities that I enjoyed. I started playing guitar, dancing, spending more time on the yoga mat, and built a regular writing practice that eventually led me to create this blog.

                My copy of this book is filled with highlighter, post-its, and hand written notes. I’ve read the full book twice and my favorite chapters dozens of times. I know I will continue to revisit it for many years to come.

If you would like to read How Not to Be Wrong, please check your local public library.
If you would prefer to have your own copy, you can support this blog and independent bookstores across the country by purchasing it HERE.