Win A Copy Of ‘Drink Your Way Sober: The Science-Based Method To Break Free From Alcohol’ By Katie Herzog
(Whoever that is)
As you may have heard, my friend and podcast co-host, pictured above in a photo taken yesterday, has written a book. I am annoyed at how good it is. Seriously.
Technically, Drink Your Way Sober: The Science-Based Method to Break Free from Alcohol is a self-help book. There’s certainly some self-help to it: This is a book that could prove unbelievably useful to anyone struggling with alcohol use disorder (as I now know the currently preferred term is), or who cares about someone who is. On one level, it’s “just” a guide to The Sinclair Method, a naltrexone-based method for reducing, and sometimes ending, problem drinking that seems to work far better for some people than its more well-known alternatives (most notably abstinence-based ones).
But it’s way more than that. Because Katie’s day job no longer involves writing, it’s easy to forget how gifted a writer she is. I am seriously jealous of how effortlessly she weaves together self-help, memoir, and careful science reporting. It’s just extremely well done. Also: She knows how to write concisely! I am incapable of that. This is a quick read, but it is packed with useful information and gut-punch stories (some of them morbidly hilarious) about both Katie’s own life and the travails of others suffering from AUD. I won’t spoil them but. . . Katie sure did spend a lot of time in bars in her twenties.
On top of all that, Drink Your Way Sober offers some really important insights into the ever-complicated relationship between science, culture, and human conceptions of morality. Alcoholism kills a lot of people and ruins the lives of many more. You’d think that if ever there were a situation that calls for a sober-minded (sorry) examination of the evidence, an intense focus on what works rather than what flatters our most cherished, moralizing stories about excess and its causes, it would be this subject. Alas, that isn’t what happened. That’s part of the reason Katie felt she had to write the book.
You should really, really, really just order a copy of Drink Your Way Sober. Those early sales make a big difference. If the book does well, I can convince Katie to finally promote me from my unpaid internship (five years is enough, Katie!).
I do also have a couple copies to give away, courtesy of the publisher, BenBella Books. Enter your email address here and I’ll do a random drawing. As always, premium subscribers get an enhanced chance to win — the first of the two copies is reserved for a primo. I’ll email the winners by 6:00 p.m. Eastern, tomorrow, just to make sure I’m not robbing Katie of any book sales. (U.S. and Canada only, print copies only.)
Seriously, though — order Katie’s book! And check out the excerpt below in The Free Press, which doesn’t appear to be paywalled at present.
When Jesse announced he was writing a book I set aside $25 in a high yield savings account to buy it. Today I used the compound interest on that $25 to order Katie’s book.
I ordered my copy long ago. Looking forward to its arrival!
(Note the *two spaces* between sentences. That's the correct format.)