Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life [Paperback]

Devon Jersild (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2002

Did You Know

• Female alcoholics are twice as likely to die as male alcoholics in the same age group
• Women metabolize alcohol differently from men, more quickly developing such physical complications as liver disease, high blood pressure, and hepatitis.
• A female alcoholic is more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, which may not go away even if she stops drinking.
• An astonishing four million women in the U.S. meet the diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence.
• When a woman drinks, she is five times more likely to be raped.

These are just a few of the alarming facts you will learn from this book -- facts every woman needs to know. Mixing cutting-edge research with affecting stories of women who struggle with alcohol problems, Happy Hours challenges our assumptions and expands our awareness of the role alcohol plays in women's lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After a slow start filled with tedious statistics, this noteworthy examination of women and alcohol delivers compelling personal stories that illuminate previously neglected aspects of this devastating social problem. Jersild observes that, as for many other health-related issues, most research on and treatment for alcoholism have been based on male-only models. Alcoholics Anonymous, the most widespread (and, generally most respected) long-term sobriety program, was founded by and designed for "white, Protestant, mostly upper-middle-class men," says Jersild, a freelance writer. While its 12-step disease-model approach deliberately avoids cultural and gender-specific issues, Jersild points out many obstacles to recovery that, she claims, apply only or primarily to women. For example, she contends that the AA tenet of "accepting powerlessness" is based on the "assumption... that alcoholics are self-centered, self-aggrandizing and controlling," while women, Jersild asserts, more often have felt nothing but powerless in society and with their mates, and "need a recovery program that shores up their sense of self." Additionally, these women often have unique shame issues involving sexuality and may be victims of physical abuse. Motivated by "self-loathing," they need, she says, to focus on therapy for childhood traumas, gaining financial independence from men and caring for (and keeping custody of) their children. Jersild offers hope in the form of some treatment programs that are tailored to what she says are the specific needs of women, Native Americans and African-Americans. Agent, Elaine Markson. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"...this noteworthy examination of women and alcohol delivers compelling personal stories that illuminate previously neglected aspects of this devastating...problem." -- Publishers Weekly --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060929901
• ISBN-13: 978-0060929909
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,023,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important study of a major problem, May 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life (Hardcover)

HAPPY HOURS is an important study of a major problem that reads itself like a novel or book of stories. Jersild is a beautiful writer, and she shapes the individual stories of these distressed women with consummate care and a poet's eye for details. The information presented is succinct and useful. This book should be standard reading on the subject for years to come.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars an outsider attempts to look in, August 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life (Hardcover)

I appreciate the effort here by the sister of an alcoholic,
a concerned family member who is bewildered and cannot understand the illness.

However, I read the entire book, and I felt this author really
did not uncover anything useful for those who suffer from
addictive, compulsive behavior, or for those who are trying
to help people that do.

Addiction is extremely complex, and the stories in this book just
did not give me any enlightment at all into the behaviour. It seemed straight reporting by an outsider who really does not
understand. To put it bluntly, it was very clinical, and had
very little soul. I know this writer loves her sister, and means well, but this book shows little insight into the very difficult
process of unraveling the myriad reasons for destructive addictive behavior, and truly difficult work it takes to reverse
years and even decades of this behavior in many women who were
denied any sympathy in our society, or any support, since it
was considered so shameful, and such a sign of weakness.

The most valuable part of the book points out the years of hiding
that women suffer from alcoholism in numbers almost as great as
men, and that this was kept a secret. Also that women process
alcohol differently, and suffer harm from it more quickly than
men, but I don't think this is rocket science.

I also thought it was quite interesting that the author points out that AA was founded by well-to-do white males with big egos,
and that it is possible many women have problems with the basic suppositions of the 12 steps. Their big deal is that by relinquishing your personal power, you are admitting you can't control everything. Most women never grow up with these thoughts in their heads to begin with, since most women are taught from day one that they have no power.

I am sorry to disagree with the other reviews, but I gave this
book away.

42 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destined to be a Classic, February 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life (Hardcover)

With "Happy Hours," Devon Jersild has taken her place in the front ranks of American social journalism and literary nonfiction. She has identified, researched and brilliantly set forth a topic of urgent concern-women afflicted with alcoholism-that until this book had remained "invisible" as a distinct and singular crisis in our society. The breadth of her scholarship and personal reporting is prodigious. But perhaps the book's true distinction lies in the quality of its prose. Clear, free from fashionable shrillness and polarizing accusation, precisely phrased and hypnotically compelling, it moves us along a powerful narrative line into a terrifying shadow-world previously known only to its suffering denizens and a few of their friends and loved ones. By shining her beacon of compassion and truth into these shadows, Devon Jersild has taken the first step toward alleviating its many sorrows and dangers. This book will stand alongside those of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Simone de Beauvoir in the literature of reclamation.