I first this book not long after I left rehab (for drinking, of course) on the seventh day. I would occasionally read it again during periods of sobriety - and heavy drinking. I've never read a book on alcoholism quite like it but now that I've been sober for almost nineteen months, I don't think I can read it again if I want to stay sober. Let me explain...it's such a wonderful, fascinating, hypnotic book, that for an alcoholic to read such detailed chapters about drinking and the obsession of it might make me want to take a drink. Until I read this book I thought I was the only alcoholic that truly LOVED drinking and all of its rituals. I also thought I was the only alcoholic that thought about the good drinking memories I had and not just the ones concerning sickness, jail, car accidents and broken relationships. I was saddened to read that a few years after this book was published, Caroline Knapp died of lung cancer (her father and mother both died of cancer). She was a wonderful, thoughtful writer and I hope she is at peace. ( )

After recently reading Knapp's book 'Appetites' I went back and re-read 'Drinking'. Knapp has a masterly skills of taking the events of her own life and using them to explore larger issues than just her own problems. This is an honest and at times brutal look at her own problems with alcohol, and paints a great pictures of how alcoholics are not just winos or obvious 'problem' people, but that they can also be people who from the outside seem to have it all together, whereas the reality is that they are struggling with addiction. ( )

Absorbing autobiographical story of the author's 20-year addiction to alcohol and her struggle for sobriety. Clear honest look at alcoholism and its effects. Beautifully written. The author comes across as a trifle self-absorbed, but it IS an autobiography. One can't help but be self-absorbed when writing about oneself, right? ( )

Addiction, biogaphy, alchololism, depression; a memoir of some dark times that Knapp describes uncomfortably well. ( )

unimpressed whiney rich girl obcessed with her smart and archived family ( )