Drink - by Ann Dowsett Johnston (Paperback)

About the Book

In Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, award-winning journalist Anne Dowsett Johnston combines in-depth research with her own personal story of recovery, and delivers a groundbreaking examination of a shocking yet little recognized epidemic threatening society today: the precipitous rise in risky drinking among women and girls.

With the feminist revolution, women have closed the gender gap in their professional and educational lives. They have also achieved equality with men in more troubling areas as well. In the U.S. alone, the rates of alcohol abuse among women have skyrocketed in the past decade. DUIs, drunkorexia (choosing to limit eating to consume greater quantities of alcohol), and health problems connected to drinking are all rising a problem exacerbated by the alcohol industry itself.

Battling for women s dollars and leisure time, corporations have developed marketing strategies and products targeted exclusively to women. Equally alarming is a recent CDC report showing a sharp rise in binge drinking, putting women and girls at further risk.

As she brilliantly weaves in-depth research, interviews with leading researchers, and the moving story of her own struggle with alcohol abuse, Johnston illuminates this startling epidemic, dissecting the psychological, social, and industry factors that have contributed to its rise, and exploring its long-lasting impact on our society and individual lives."

Book Synopsis

In Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, award-winning journalist Anne Dowsett Johnston combines in-depth research with her own personal story of recovery, and delivers a groundbreaking examination of a shocking yet little recognized epidemic threatening society today: the precipitous rise in risky drinking among women and girls.

With the feminist revolution, women have closed the gender gap in their professional and educational lives. They have also achieved equality with men in more troubling areas as well. In the U.S. alone, the rates of alcohol abuse among women have skyrocketed in the past decade. DUIs, "drunkorexia" (choosing to limit eating to consume greater quantities of alcohol), and health problems connected to drinking are all rising--a problem exacerbated by the alcohol industry itself.

Battling for women's dollars and leisure time, corporations have developed marketing strategies and products targeted exclusively to women. Equally alarming is a recent CDC report showing a sharp rise in binge drinking, putting women and girls at further risk.

As she brilliantly weaves in-depth research, interviews with leading researchers, and the moving story of her own struggle with alcohol abuse, Johnston illuminates this startling epidemic, dissecting the psychological, social, and industry factors that have contributed to its rise, and exploring its long-lasting impact on our society and individual lives.

From the Back Cover

One of the Washington Post's Ten Best Books of 2013

More than twenty-three thousand women die from heavy drinking in the United States each year. Incidents of binge drinking and so-called drunkorexia are on the rise, contributing to an exponential increase in the number of health conditions and cancers among women.

Combining in-depth research with her own personal story of recovery, the award-winning journalist Ann Dowsett Johnston tells of maintaining her high-powered career as a vice principal of McGill University while wrestling with the demon that defeated her own mother: alcohol addiction. After a very private exit from her professional life, Dowsett Johnston went to rehab; now sober, she has dedicated her career to examining the relationship between women and high-risk drinking.

In Drink, Dowsett Johnston dissects the psychological, social, and workplace factors that contribute to this crisis, and explores its far-reaching effect on both society at large and individual lives. Comprehensive and emotionally compelling, Drink is a brave and powerful story, beautifully told, and an important investigation into an epidemic that we can no longer afford to ignore.

Review Quotes

"Ann Dowsett Johnston brilliantly captures how addiction stealthily invades lives. She courageously delves into the lure of alcohol-whether it comes from the culture around us, the false promises, or the pain we seek to numb. Drink is an important and timely call to attention for the rise of binge-drinking and alcohol addiction in women of all ages." - David A. Kessler, M.D., Author of the NYT bestseller, The End of Overeating, and Former Commissioner of the FDA.

"In this comprehensively researched and insightful book, Ann Dowsett Johnston chronicles her own destructive dance with alcohol, her recovery and explores disturbing trends in contemporary women's relationship to alcohol. A crucially important book for anyone interested in women's health and addiction issues." - Susan Juby, author of Nice Recovery

"Drink is a gift to women, to parents, and to all who want to understand the experience of alcoholism. The writing is gripping and vivid, the voice personal, the research exacting, the stories revealing if sometimes heartbreaking, the conclusions essential. A triumphant life, a triumphant book." - Gabor Maté M.D., author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

"Part elegiac memoir and part synthetic journalism, this book tackles bluntly the silence and complicity about alcoholism in women. It traverses subjects from brain science to public policy, from trauma to culture, always with powerful stories of women for whom alcohol became an insidious and destructive force. Without soft-pedaling the damage and losses, it is also a story of love, triumph and hope." - David Goldbloom, MD, FRCPC, Senior Medical Advisor, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

"A powerful and important book about the increase in alcoholism and binge-drinking among women, and about our willful blindness to the damages of drinking in our culture." - Susan Cheever, author of My Name Is Bill: Bill Wilson-His Life, and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous

"wallop of a book... full of riveting candor...Johnston brings the weight of her journalism and academic experience to build a convincing case that women are increasingly succumbing to the dark side of alcohol" - Washington Post

"A game-changing look at one of our culture's hidden problems . . . honest, brave and inspirational." - Margaret Trudeau, author of Changing My Mind