Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood [Mass Market Paperback]

Koren Zailckas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2006

Garnering a vast amount of attention from young people and parents, and from book buyers across the country, Smashed became a media sensation and a New York Times bestseller. Eye-opening and utterly gripping, Koren Zailckas’s story is that of thousands of girls like her who are not alcoholics—yet—but who routinely use booze as a shortcut to courage and a stand-in for good judgment.

With one stiff sip of Southern Comfort at the age of fourteen, Zailckas is initiated into the world of drinking. From then on, she will drink faithfully, fanatically. In high school, her experimentation will lead to a stomach pumping. In college, her excess will give way to a pattern of self-poisoning that will grow more destructive each year. At age twenty-two, Zailckas will wake up in an unfamiliar apartment in New York City, elbow her friend who is passed out next to her, and ask, "Where are we?" Smashed is a sober look at how she got there and, after years of blackouts and smashups, what it took for her to realize she had to stop drinking. Smashed is an astonishing literary debut destined to become a classic.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This isn't just one girl's story of sneaking drinks in junior high, creeping out for night-long keg parties in high school and binge-drinking weeknights and weekends through college—it's also a valuable cautionary tale. At 24 (her present age), Zailckas gave up drinking after a decade of getting drunk, having blackouts and experiencing brushes with comas, date rape and suicide. She weaves disturbing statistics (from Harvard School of Public Heath studies and elsewhere) into her memoir: most girls will have their first drink by age 12, and will have the experience of being drunk by 14; teenage girls drink as much as their male peers, but their bodies process it badly (they get drunk faster, stay drunk longer and are more likely to die of alcohol poisoning); and date rape and booze go hand-in-hand. Zailckas had alcohol poisoning at 16 after a night of downing shots at a party with friends, but having her stomach pumped in the emergency room and enduring a month of being grounded didn't check her desire to drink. Fraternity keg parties led to drunken sexual encounters not-quite-remembered; drinking began to replace intimacy. Alcohol defined Zailckas's adolescence and college years to such an extent that, as she tells it, she lacks the tools to be an adult: she's unsure how to maintain relationships and unclear about sex without an alcohol buzz. Zailckas is unsparingly insightful and acutely aware of what drinking can and does do to girls. She explains that while kids are taught that drugs are always dangerous, alcohol is perceived as an acceptable rite of passage. Her book is deeply moving, written in poetic, nuanced prose that never obscures the dangerous truths she seeks to reveal.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Zailckas doesn't have the "genetically based reaction to alcohol that addiction counselors call 'a disease.'" But throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, she abused alcohol heavily: "I drank for the explicit purpose of getting drunk, getting brave, or medicating my moods." Her first sips of hard liquor, before she started high school, hit her with the force of a crush-- "as hopeful and as heartbreaking as kissing a boy." By the time she entered Syracuse University, she had already been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, and her binge drinking through college, wholly supported by the Greek system, contributed to heartbreaking, empty sexual encounters and difficulty relating to anyone without "the third wheel" of alcohol. Zailckas muses about the societal factors that contribute to the astonishing rise in women's drinking. Most unnerving, though, are her honest, detailed accounts of her own profound abuse, which was accepted, encouraged, and chillingly commonplace; thousands of young women share her story. Like Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story (1996), this raw, eye-opening memoir will deepen readers' understanding of American culture and perhaps their own lives. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Soft Cover edition (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143036475
• ISBN-13: 978-0143036470
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (213 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Recovery > Alcoholism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 128 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good writing, frightening subject, February 8, 2005

By 

Craig (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood (Hardcover)

This is a well-written, seriously scary book that will likely have many readers cringing when they read about the problems alcohol led to for Zailckas. As someone with a young daughter, I found it to be both a cautionary tale and an engrossing memoir. For anyone who has an alcoholic or binge drinker in their family, you'll be able to relate on some level. For me, it was interesting to hear about the experience from the perspective of a young woman.

The author writes lucidly and poetically about her past, showing the effects of her lifestyle without ever trying to invoke pity for anything that happened to her in the past. It makes one wonder how common her story, or at least certain elements of it, are to many young women.

Although the material is often heavy and depressing, this one will keep your attention. A terrific and frightening account.

46 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pathetic & a disservice to other young women with drinking problems, July 6, 2006

By 

P. Fulcher (DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood (Hardcover)

I really, really, really wanted to like this book. the first 150-200pages were an engaging drunkalogue and then it was completely repetitious ("i drink too much, i am always hung over, i hate men, i isolate, i am so paranoid, i drink too much, did i mention i hate men?") She is so obviously an alcoholic that she really does a disservice to other young women (or their parents) reading this book b/c she leads one to believe that AA is not necessary (or even an option for help)unless you meet some kind of stringent genetic definition of what an alcoholic is. i suspect the *one* counselor she consulted (online, no less) that told her she is not genetically an alcoholic is somewhere kicking himself. she also never shows us what she wrote to him, so it is likley she manipulated her questions to him to get the answer she wanted - that she is simply an "abusive" drinker. if she was as schooled about alcoholism as she is about alcohol advertising, then she would see how obvious her alcoholism is. she never even attended one AA meeting, yet at the end of the book she marvels at the idea of talking to another problem drinker to make her feel better. totally laughable! had she actually gone to that meeting (instead of walking by it), she could have been talking to other women just like her all along - and learning how to manage the anger and resentment that she is still clearly carrying with her. and it is very sad to see that she only stopped drinking when she met a man. i would hate to see what happens to her if they should break-up.

so i have to repeat - how very sad that she has cut herself off from all the wonderful people (women) she could meet by attending AA and learn how to manage her - very obvious - drinking problem. she is still blaming everyone else (i.e. the alcohol industry) for her problems. to anyone reading this book that identifies with her and is at a loss as to what they should do - she is in denial about her problem and is what is known as a "dry drunk". those alcohol ads that demean women did not make her pick up a drink and cause her feelings of inferiority and isolation and paranoia, etc etc - she is a sick woman and needs to get some help. a good place to start is with the support of other people just like you/her - maybe go to a meeting and learn how to get your life back together again. you do not need to struggle on your own like she does or meet a man to get your sanity back. i am not saying AAis the only way, only suggesting that you not discount it the way she did.

60 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Revealing Look At Alcohol Abuse, March 14, 2005

By 

Gregory Baird (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood (Hardcover)

In 'Smashed', Koren Zailckas examines her history with drinking in a frank and brutally honest manner. From the day she first experimented with alcohol at age 14 to the severe binge-drinking that defined her college years, she takes you on a journey of excess and provides the reasons for her escalating problem. The situations she gets into are dark (waking up naked in a man's bed with the suspicion that she had been the victim of date-rape, having her stomach pumped after passing out on a dock at age 16, etc.), making for a compelling read that is at once hard to put down and difficult to hear. Looking back, Zailckas can see the reasons for her drinking and does a decent job getting across some explanations that are hard to explain to anyone who hasn't felt the same way. The most interesting revelation in the book is that Zailckas is not actually an alcoholic, but a victim of alcohol abuse. When she reaches out to a counselor on the internet she discovers that she has none of the genetic characteristics that describe alcoholism. Zailckas' problem is that excess was encouraged to her in a society that more and more sees teen drinking as a rite of passage instead of the problem it is. Her depression and insecurity made her an easy target to lose control, and no one was able to see her problem for what it was. 'Smashed' exposes a new social problem that has not been acknowledged in the media so far, and Zailckas is to be commended for bringing it out for discussion.