Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol

As Whitaker aged from her twenties into her early thirties, her drinking increased. While she sometimes wondered if she had a drinking problem, she and her friends normalized their heavy drinking to each other. When Whitaker consulted a doctor friend about her drinking and bulimia, the doctor suggested Alcoholics Anonymous, but Whitaker still insisted she was not an alcoholic and felt resistant about going to AA meetings. 

She managed to overcome this denial and, over the course of a year and a half, overcame her eating disorder and her dependency on alcohol. In the process, she reinvented herself: She decided to quit her job and educate people about addiction and recovery. 

Whitaker believes that our culture’s relationship with alcohol is dysfunctional, as it normalizes regular drinking, even when there is evidence that it erodes people’s health. She argues that women, in particular, are harmed by myths around drinking and conventional recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. She explains that her book will examine how drinking limits women’s power and explain how women can reach their potential by removing alcohol from their lives.