“The goal here is to create a situation you no longer have to escape, or a life you don’t have to numb. The achievement of sobriety is not the point, it’s a by-product of the work. The work is the point. Addiction is the hook that gets you in the door, and quitting is the catalyst to heal deeper wounds.” Holly Whitaker writes in her powerful non-fiction book, Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol.” Published in December 2019, Quit Like a Woman is the book I think many of us need, especially since experiencing the pain and loneliness of the pandemic of the early 2020’s. I noticed more girlfriends of mine sharing that their drinking had increased in those difficult COVID years. Clients express the same sentiment.
But are we ready to explore how there is more going on in our society, regarding problematic drinking, than the circumstances of an isolating, oppressive public health crisis? Holly Whitaker argues just that: our culture has become steeped in a toxic substance. It’s become common to see alcohol served at baby showers, beers offered at the end of group runs and yoga classes, shirts for sale that read “Mommy needs her wine.” Happy hours, parties, drinking with clients, drinking to be around family, drinking to unwind, to spice things up, the list goes on and on… Whitaker brilliantly lays bare the connection between the Big Tobacco Industry and the Big Alcohol Industry. Both have increasingly targeted women and “developing countries” as new potential customer bases with substances that have been proven to cause cancer. Big Tobacco’s PR argued for years that “there haven’t been enough studies to prove it causes cancer.” They hired actors to pose as doctors in white coats in the middle of the 20th century to supposedly demonstrate the smoking cigarettes was “healthy.” Big Alcohol’s PR line is “drink responsibly” which Holly argues is ridiculous since not even one drink of ethanoyl has healthy benefits and is, instead, an addictive substance that harms the liver. Keep ingesting an addictive substance and one will become addicted.
I initially thought that Holly was going to be too much of a hard-ass for me to buy into her premise. She has made the decision to never drink alcohol. In fact, she has “NQTD” (never question the decision) tattooed onto her body. She boldly shares where her problematic drinking led her. Trying to fit in during her younger days, to going overboard with blackouts, regrettable hookups with men she didn’t like, sexual assault, initial self-loathing, workaholism and co-existing bulimia. But over time, self-reflection, stints in and out of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, writing, and therapy, she gains her power and self-respect back. Yoga saves her life, meditation saves her life, hot lemon water first thing in the morning saves her life! (It helps to flush out toxins from the liver, improves digestion throughout the day and is part of a peaceful morning routine.) Replacing old rituals of Happy Hours and drinking with “friends” with new healthier habits saves her life. Her radical critique of our society is refreshing. Fun does exist without alcohol. Holly doesn’t strive for perfection and she hates the word “alcoholic.” She argues that the term “alcoholic” keeps many of us in comparison and prevents us from seeking help. “Oh I’m not as bad as Bill. He crashed his car…” “Oh I’m not as bad as Bob, he lost his job.”
Holly names her discomfort with the rooms of AA, with its almost 100 year old philosophy of breaking down one’s ego, one’s so-called “character defects.” Holly writes that AA doesn’t work for many women and minorities because we are already told to shut up and make ourselves small by Western culture. One famous aphorism of AA’s is to “get the cotton out of your ears and to put it in your mouth.” This may have been an appropriate message for white, upper middle class men who had the power in the 1930s, when AA was originally formed, but women today need to speak their truths. We don’t need to be preyed on by creepy, opportunistic men in AA trying to achieve their “13th Step” (to hook up with a woman new to the Program). Our truth is that, many times, drinking has been a way to cope with trauma, sexual assault and poverty. It’s been a way to deal with boredom, loneliness and anxiety. Unfortunately, it creates even more anxiety and destroys our ability to obtain restful sleep. This drug is killing us at increasing rates each year, while Big Alcohol executives laugh themselves to the bank. Our trauma-response of overdoing it with drinking is no longer serving us.
Holly writes that the question should not be “Am I an Alcoholic?”, but rather, “How is alcohol playing out in my life? Is this what I really want? Is this best for me, my dreams and my goals?” In beautiful, poignant and sometimes downright hilarious prose (They made it seem that if I didn’t keep coming back to AA “I’d end up a toothless whore”) she makes a case for a more vulnerable, yet more present, life. Holly Whitaker is the founder of Tempest, an online, modern approach to quitting drinking that uses Peer support and evidence-based practices. She welcomes the “sober curious.” She offers compassion, where the focus isn’t how much “time” one has sober, but on the process. This has been a wonderful read to suggest for others and for many life/practice-enhancing takeaways.
