Drinking: A Love Story

When a friend lent me a stack of books a few months ago I skimmed through the titles and quickly relegated this one to the bottom of the pile, its title and subject matter conjuring up images of spiritually reborn Americans admitting they had a drinking problem and subsequently learning to love themselves and others in true Ricki Lake style.

When eventually I ran out of other reading matter and picked this up I did so with extremely low expectations and a lot of cynicism. This lasted all of 10 pages, by which point I realised I was reading a very intelligent and honest account of alcohol misuse by a woman whose story challenges readers' ideas about what kind of people become alcoholics.

Caroline Knapp tells of her personal slide into alcohol dependency. Sparing no gory details, she examines the start of her alcohol related behaviour in her socially awkward teenage years, when social drinking gave her the confidence to get through compulsory teenage milestones such as her first kiss. Ultimately, her drinking spiralled far beyond enjoying a few drinks with friends to the point when, in her early 30s, she used alcohol daily to numb the pain of her father's death and her relationship problems. Yet through this all she successfully juggled a responsible job and two boy friends, with only her closest family noticing the extent of her drinking.

Not exactly the stereotypical image that many might hold of an alcoholic. A middle aged, unemployed man who beats his family and whose liver slowly packs in might be more like it, and in a way that is almost a more comfortable thought. After all, Caroline Knapp's story is relatively close to the bone for us to relate to as medical students. Her father and sister were doctors, and she considered medicine as a career at one stage. Her drive for perfection is a quality often seen in, and almost required of, medical students. When you also consider that a fair proportion of British doctors have alcohol problems you could really get quite worried.

I recommend this book as not just a good read but also a thought provoking one. It may make you realise that alcoholic behaviour has a meaning and reality far beyond the simplicity of the CAGE questionnaire and may also lead you to question some of your own behaviour on pub crawls.

Zoe Apple, fourth year medical student, Manchester
Email: zoeapple@hotmail.com


studentBMJ 2001;09:261-304 August ISSN 0966-6494