Allen Carr was the British author of numerous successful books on the topic of overcoming addiction. Originally an accountant, Carr became an author after he successfully quit smoking and wanted to share his insights with others. After the success of his first book, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking (1985), Carr wrote The Easy Way to Control Alcohol in 2001.

Whitaker portrays Carr as a wise, experienced person with insightful advice on the topic of addiction. In Quit Like A Woman, she credits Carr’s book with helping her to make a final, effective decision to quit alcohol for good. The author found Carr’s work intriguing, as he frames sobriety as a positive experience. She writes, “His book reveals a truth I never thought to entertain, which is that it isn’t about not getting to drink, but about not having to drink” (115). 

Whitaker was also interested in Carr’s unique perspective on drinking and addiction. While society tends to divide people into “normals” and “alcoholics,” Carr has a different binary: drinkers and non-drinkers. Carr’s argument that the only way to control alcohol’s influence in one’s life is to decide not to drink at all made a profound impact on Whitaker, who agreed that quitting drinking completely was the best decision for her mental and physical health. By discussing his work in detail and explaining the positive impact that it had on her life, Whitaker encourages the reader to see Carr as an expert and try reading his work themselves.

Carol Lee Flinders is an American writer and professor. She is the author of At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst. Whitaker describes Flinders as an expert on spirituality and meditation: She explains, “Flinders is a feminist and a deeply committed meditation student and teacher, with a profound depth of knowledge about women mystics” (186). In her work, Flinders argues that spiritual traditions and feminism sometimes contradict each other, and women cannot expect to find spiritual fulfillment in traditions invented by and for men. She identifies spiritual principles such as negating the self, isolating from the world, resisting desire, and self-silencing as methods invented for men, because they were the ones who historically had these privileges in the first place, along with the choice to renounce them. Flinders suggests that the opposite of these practices can help women on their spiritual journeys.

Whitaker’s encounter with Flinder’s work was a revelatory moment in which she finally understood why the Alcoholics Anonymous program felt so insulting and counterproductive to her. She feels that, much like traditional spiritual practices, AA was also invented with men’s needs in mind and therefore offered an ideology that was unhelpful for her. Whitaker recalls, “It makes sense that a woman might entirely refuse a program that asked her to give up something that she’s not only never had, but was finally just grasping: a sense of self, a voice, a sense of her own desires, freedom in a world not made for her” (187). Whitaker’s incorporation of Flinders’ work into her own bolsters her examination of the connections between gender, oppression, and self-improvement, adding depth to her own memories about her recovery.

Bill Wilson (1895-1971) was an American stockbroker from Brooklyn, New York. He is best known as the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, the most well-known recovery program for alcohol addiction in the United States. Wilson helped his friend Dr. Bob Smith overcome his addiction to alcohol, and the two co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous together in 1939. In her work, Whitaker portrays Wilson as well-meaning but argues that his insights about addiction and recovery are too narrow and rigid to be applied to most modern Americans.

Whitaker argues that Wilson’s Twelve Steps framework for Alcoholics Anonymous is reflective of his individual experience of society and addiction as an upper-class Christian white male in 1930s America. She argues that Wilson’s religious and self-effacing messaging may have been relevant for men like him who attended the first AA meetings, but it may be counterproductive to others, especially women and marginalized people. Whitaker believes that Wilson’s instructions about admitting mistakes, making apologies, being humble, and asking God for forgiveness were designed to mitigate the egos of upper-class white men in the 1930s and are no longer relevant or helpful to people like herself. Whitaker personally felt that her AA meetings deepened her sense of shame about her addiction and advises women to look outside AA for different options for recovery.

John Dupuy is an American professor who specializes in addiction and recovery. Formerly a military police investigator, Dupuy now teaches Addiction Studies at John F. Kennedy University and has helped to found two recovery programs: Open Sky Wilderness Therapy and Passages to Recovery. Dupuy advocates for “brain entrainment technology” in treating addiction and depression.

He is the author of the popular book Integral Recovery, which explains how people in recovery from addiction can integrate modern scientific knowledge and practices into their traditional recovery programs. In her work, Whitaker cites Integral Recovery as an important part of her recovery journey. She agrees with Dupuy that recovering addicts need programs that cater to their needs as individuals, rather than strict templates for recovery. Whitaker reports that Dupuy’s concept of holistic recovery helped her overcome her own addictions, as she addressed problems in different areas of her life, from her physical and mental health to spiritual and practical matters.

Pema Chödrön is a Tibetan Buddhist nun, teacher, and author. According to her profile on Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia, Chödrön was born in New York and worked as an elementary school teacher until she discovered Buddhism in her thirties. After studying at a monastery in the French Alps, Chödrön became a novice Buddhist nun and ultimately completed her ordination in Hong Kong (“Pema Chödrön Abbess of Gampo Abbey.” Gampo Abbey). She is the author of many books, including Practicing Peace in Times of War, The Wisdom of No Escape, Start Where You Are, When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, and No Time to Lose.

In Quit Like a Woman, Whitaker credits Chödrön for helping her understand the inherent tension between maintaining one’s confidence and self-interests while also remaining humble and service-oriented. Whitaker cites Chödrön’s work on identity and perception of the self and credits Chödrön for informing her perspective on this paradox. Chödrön believes that everyone must “learn to be big and small at the same time. Big, as in worthy because we exist. Small, as in we exist to serve humanity” (220). Whitaker connects Chödrön’s ideas to the issues recovering addicts face, coaching the reader to develop their own voice and confidence while also considering how they could be in service to others.