Whitaker was the founder of Hip Sobriety, an organization that strove to change the way people thought about alcohol and alcohol problems. Even readers who don’t buy that argument-and I do-have to acknowledge the appeal of seeing abstinence as rebellion, rather than renunciation. When she calls not drinking a “radical choice,” she’s not indulging in hyperbole she’s connecting heavy drinking with systems of oppression and identifying sobriety as resistance. Though not the first recovery author to focus on women’s experience, Holly Whitaker is the first that I know of to offer a feminist critique of alcohol and recovery cultures and to make that critique an argument for abstinence. I also liked that the book is overtly political. Quit Like a Woman rouses that anger and aims it at recovery. In fact, I often marvel at how much people with addictions, especially women, can benefit from redirecting their anger away from themselves and toward a culture that pushes an addictive drug then shames those who become dependent on it. I liked her anger at pro-alcohol propaganda, anger that is not only justified, but also surprisingly helpful in getting sober, as this blog attests. I liked the book’s focus on alcohol and recovery culture, so vital to understanding why we drink too much yet so often ignored in books about how to stop doing it. The first time I read Holly Whitaker’s Quit Like a Woman, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.
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