Ann Johnston - Drink - The Deadly Relationship Between Women and Alcohol

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2013

Simultaneously published in the US in 2013 by Harper Wave,

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Copyright © Ann Dowsett Johnston 2013

Ann Dowsett Johnston asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint from previously published material:

Various portions of this book first appeared in the author’s series on Women and Alcohol in the Toronto Star in 2011. Used by kind permission from the Atkinson Foundation and the Toronto Star .

Portions of Chapter 2: Out of Africa first appeared in Maclean’s as “Postcards from Paradise” (Aug. 20, 2001). Reprinted by kind permission from Maclean’s magazine, Rogers Publishing Limited.

“The Laughing Heart” from Betting On The Muse: Poems & Stories by Charles Bukowski. Copyright © 1996 by Linda Lee Bukowski. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers .

Excerpt from “East Coker” from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. Copyright © 1940 by T.S. Eliot; copyright © renewed 1968 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, and Houghton Miffl in Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you” from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks (HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc., 1995); copyright © 1995 by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of Coleman Barks.

“Natural History” from Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition , originally edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth and revised and updated by Martha White. Copyright ©2006 by White Literary LLC. By permission of HarperCollins Publishers .

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007503568

Ebook Edition © October 2013 ISBN: 9780007503575

Version: 2014-12-18

The names and other identifying details of some major and minor characters have been changed to protect individual privacy and anonymity.

TO MY MOTHER,

for her courage and love

AND TO NICHOLAS,

for his infinite wisdom

Our excesses are the best clue we have to our own poverty, and our best way of concealing it from ourselves.

—ADAM PHILLIPS, BRITISH PSYCHOANALYST

the laughing heart

your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank

submission.

be on the watch.

there are ways out.

there is a light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats the

darkness.

be on the watch.

the gods will offer you

chances.

know them, take them.

you can’t beat death but

you can beat death

in life,

sometimes.

and the more often you

learn to do it,

the more light there will

be.

your life is your life.

know it while you have

it.

you are marvelous.

the gods wait to delight

in

you.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Author’s Note

Dedication

Epigraph

By Charles Bukowski

Prologue

PART ONE: SINGING BACKWARDS

1. The Monkey Diary

The beginning of the end

2. Out of Africa

A family unravels

3. You’ve Come the Wrong Way, Baby

Closing the gender gap on risky drinking

4. The Future Is Pink

The alcohol industry takes aim at the female consumer

5. The Age of Vulnerability

The consequences of drinking young

6. Binge

The campus drinking culture

PART TWO: ON THE EDGE OF THE BIG LONELY

7. Searching for the Off Button

Drinking to forget, drinking to numb

8. Self-Medication

Mood disorders and alcohol: A seductive combination

9. Romancing the Glass

A slim stem of liquid swagger

10. The Modern Woman’s Steroid

Popping the cork on mother’s little helper

11. The Last Taboo

Drinking and pregnancy

12. The Daughters’ Stories

Growing up with an alcoholic mother

PART THREE: HEALING

13. In Which Everything Changes

Getting sober, staying sober

14. Breaking the Trauma Cycle

The mother-and-child reunion

15. Something in the Water

Shaping a strong public health strategy

16. Wrestling with the God Thing

Spirituality and sobriety

17. Stigma

A call to action

18. Becoming Whole

In which I recover my self

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Author

About the Publisher

Hang out in the brightly lit rooms of AA, or in coffee shops, talking to dozens of women who have given up drinking, and this is the conclusion you come to: for most, booze is a loan shark, someone they trusted for a while, came to count on, before it turned ugly.

Every person with a drinking problem learns this the hard way. And no matter what the circumstances, certain parts of the story are always the same. Here is how the story goes:

At first, alcohol is that elegant figure standing in the corner by the bar, the handsome one in the beautiful black tuxedo. Or maybe he’s in black leather and jeans. It doesn’t matter. You can’t miss him. He’s always at the party—and he always gets there first.

Maybe you first saw him in high school. Many do. Others meet him long before. He finds his moment, some time when you’re wobbly or nervous, excited or scared. You’re heading into a big party or a dance. All of a sudden your stomach begins to lurch. You’re overdressed, or underdressed; too tall, too short; heartsick, or heart-in-your-mouth anxious. Doesn’t matter. Booze wastes no time. He sidles up with a quick hit of courage. You grab it. It feels good. It works.

Or maybe you’ve fallen in love. You’re at a wedding, a dinner, a celebration. You want this moment to last. You fear it won’t. Just as your doubts begin to get the best of you, booze holds out a glass, a slim stem of liquid swagger, pale blond and bubbly. You take a sip and instantly the room begins to soften. So do you: your toes curl a little, your heart is light. All things are possible. Now this is a sweetheart deal.

This is how it begins. And for many, this is where it ends. Turning twenty-one or twenty-five or thirty, some will walk into a crowded room, into weddings or graduations or wakes, and for them, he’s no longer there. Totally disappeared. Or perhaps they never saw him in the first place. And he doesn’t seek them out. They’re not his people.