Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women And Alcohol - Hardcover

Dowsett Johnston, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 144341879X ISBN 13: 9781443418799

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

What is behind the rise in alcohol consumption and abuse among women in recent years?

While the feminist revolution has allowed women to close the gender gap professionally and educationally, it has also witnessed a disturbing rise in equality in more troubling areas of life. In most of the developed world, the rates of binge drinking among women have skyrocketed in the past decade. DUIs, “drunkorexia” and health conditions connected to alcohol abuse are all on the rise, especially among younger women—a problem exacerbated by the alcohol industry itself. Battling for women’s dollars and leisure time, corporations have developed marketing strategies and products targeted exclusively to women, including Girls’ Night Out, MommyJuice and Mommy’s Time Out wines, berry-flavoured vodkas and fruit coolers.

Award-winning journalist Ann Dowsett Johnston illuminates this startling epidemic, dissects the psychological, social and financial factors that have contributed to its rise, and explores its long-lasting impact on our society and individual lives, including her own. In Drink, she interweaves in-depth research and interviews with leading researchers with the moving story of her own struggle with alcohol, as well as those of many other women aged seventeen to seventy. The result is an unprecedented and bold inquiry that is both informative and shocking.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

One of the Washington Post's Ten Best Books of 2013

More than twenty-three thousand women die from heavy drinking in the United States each year. Incidents of binge drinking and so-called drunkorexia are on the rise, contributing to an exponential increase in the number of health conditions and cancers among women.

Combining in-depth research with her own personal story of recovery, the award-winning journalist Ann Dowsett Johnston tells of maintaining her high-powered career as a vice principal of McGill University while wrestling with the demon that defeated her own mother: alcohol addiction. After a very private exit from her professional life, Dowsett Johnston went to rehab; now sober, she has dedicated her career to examining the relationship between women and high-risk drinking.

In Drink, Dowsett Johnston dissects the psychological, social, and workplace factors that contribute to this crisis, and explores its far-reaching effect on both society at large and individual lives. Comprehensive and emotionally compelling, Drink is a brave and powerful story, beautifully told, and an important investigation into an epidemic that we can no longer afford to ignore.

About the Author:

The winner of five National Magazine Awards, Ann Dowsett Johnston is a writer and editor recognized for her expertise in higher education and alcohol policy. A recipient of the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy and a Southam Fellowship in Journalism, she spent most of her professional career at Maclean's magazine, where she was best known as the chief architect of the university-rankings issue. A graduate of Queen's University and a former vice principal of McGill University, she lives in Toronto.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 144341879X
• ISBN 13: 9781443418799
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320