Book Review of Drinking Essay

Carolean Knapp writes eloquently and h one(a)stly, yet often starkly, about her look as a functioning alcoholic. Ms. Knapp graduated Magna cum laude from Br accept University, was a contributing editor at New cleaning woman magazine as well as the Boston Phoenix. She wrote for many other magazines as well and was the precedent of Alice Ks Guide to Life. She was innate(p) into an upper-class family, one of devil twin girls, daughter of a psychoanalyst father and an artist mother. Yet despite only the gifts seemingly bestowed upon her, from her earliest memories Ms.Knapp felt up that she was various in some demeanor that she deficiencyed something to sustain her and help her travel through and through breeding her cross crutch became alcohol. Carolyns family, though a model of respectability and stability on the outside, had their own particular demons to craft with. Carolyns father was described as cold, remote, and inaccessible, an alcoholic involved in extramarital aff airs. (Handrup, 1998, p. 1). Her mother seemed to be preoccupied with breast cancer throughout much of Knapps childhood, and was seemingly unaware of the inner flavor of her children. (p. 1). Carolyn relates stories of her fathers previous marriage which produced three children, and the confusion that came along with the ex-wife and the younger son who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and whose erratic behavior frightened Carolyn. The theory of nature causing alcoholism bewitching much goes out the window on this particular case as Carolyns twin child Becca never turned to alcohol or any other addictive behavior to cope with a life that virtually mirrored Carolyns own.The disability of any alcoholic seems to be an intense need for protection an inability to weather the storms of life alone, the absolute craving for a friend, a lover that pull up stakes carry them through the rough times. In fact, Ms. Knapp felt about alcohol the exact same way she imagined others felt about their lovers. It was something she craved, obsessed over, and thought about constantly. Ms. Knapps rough times in life soon translated into absolutely anything at all, good or bad.The sun was shining, or it wasnt, the cashier at the mart store was unfriendly, or perhaps too friendly, somebody died, a baby was born. Every nuance of life became too difficult to deal with, the emotions that accompanied normal day-to-day living were too much to march without a drinkor two, or three, or four. Ms. Knapp wryly notes that living without alcohol is handle existence forced to live alone without the armor. The armor, of course, is protection from all the things we might actually feel, if we allowed ourselves to feel at all (Knapp, 1996, p.113) Comfort became an absolute necessity, and Carolean remembers that from the time she was able to sit in her mothers circuit she would rock herself back and forth, and that this bizarre behavior continued for more than years than she cared to rememb er. Later I authentic a more elaborate system Id get on my knees and elbow and axial rotation up in a ball on the bed facedown like a turtle in its shell, and rock away, for hours sometimesI was deeply embarrassed that I did this, ashamed of it, really, but I needful it.I needed it and it worked. The truth? I did this until I was sixteen. The rocking was just like drinking. (Knapp, 1996, p. 62). So, from the comfort she derived from rockingfor hours sometimes Caroline graduated to a more sophisticated form of self-comfortalcohol. She never came to a satisfactory conclusion as to why that comfort was so essential to her. I still dont know, today, if that hunger originated indoors the family or if it was something I was simply born with. In the end I dont enounce it matters.You get your comfort where you can. (p. 61). While Knapp faced fewer serious medical issues as a head of her alcoholism, she nonetheless suffered through the physical challenges her addiction brought such as the soon-daily hangovers, headaches and nausea. She suffered blackouts on occasion, and another woman one day remarked about all the tiny broken blood vessels on her nosea unequivocal sign of the habitual drinker. Knapp combined two addictions for a period of time anorexia and alcoholism.She felt like the anorexia gave her reign over over her life, and the alcoholism made it possible for her to continue the anorexia. She notes during her anorexic phase that I simply couldnt stand the starving anymore, couldnt go on without some kind of release from the absolute cogency and vigilance and self-control, and Id go out and eat like crazy and drink like crazy. These episodes were usually preceded by some glimmer of insight into my own loneliness, some gnawing sense that my hunger was more than merely physical. (Knapp, 1996, p. 141).The psychological consequences of this intense need for protection in the form of alcohol were many Knapp notes some(prenominal) times how impossible i t was to maintain any type of intimacy in relationships when she had a whole undercover life that nobody else knew of. She felt she was one person at work the responsible, hard-working, intelligent and dedicated source another with each of her boyfriends, another with her parents and siblings, and perhaps could only let her true self come through when she was alone with her lover, her glass of bourbon.Caroline felt an emptiness deep inside, that nothing could counteract except alcohol. She also felt an enormous sense of powerlessness in her own life, and described it in this way As a rule, active alcoholics are powerless people, or at least a lot of us tend to feel that way in our hearts. (Knapp, 1996. p. 178). Perhaps because she was a classic example of the functioning alcoholic, few people in Carolines life ever mentioned her drinking to her as being a problem.When her mother told her that perhaps she was drinking a bit too much, Caroline promised she would only drink two dri nks a day, no matter what. When she was unable to keep that promise, she found one excuse after another. Her own babe, while realizing the problem, skirted the issue with Caroline. While Becca didnt come right out and say that she thought her sister was an alcoholic, Caroline felt shame because she knew on some level her sister knew. Friends and boyfriends alike, seemed to accept the fact that Caroline drank, never seeing much below that superficial level of awareness.Although there were moments of clarity when Knapp realized she must(prenominal) stop drinking, (such as the time she was drunkenly swinging her best friends two daughters or so and fell down, narrowly missing injuring the children), in the end it was no one thing that prompted her to enter rehab. She felt that it would take great bravery to face life without anesthesia, (Iaciofano, 2004, p. 13) yet, in the end, she was able to pull that very courage from somewhere deep inside herself. Ms.Knapps story, full of bad r elationships, years of self doubt and ache, virile addictions and family issues, psychologically goes far beyond the disease of alcoholism itself, and offers tremendous insight into the gut-wrenching need for something to ease the distress that life inflicts. Ms. Knapp notes that You take away the drink and you take away the single most important rule of coping you have. How to talk to people without a drink.. How to experience a real emotionpain or anxiety or sadnesswithout an escape route, a quick way to anesthetize it.How to quiescence at night. (Knapp, 1996, p. 254). References Handrup, Cynthia Taylor. (July-September 1998). Drinking A love life Story. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. Retrieved April 20, 2006, from http//www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_qa3804/is_199807/ai_n8791537/print Iaciofano, Carol. (June 16, 2004). Lyrical Essays distinction a Womans Short Yet Rich Life. Globe. Retrieved April 21, 2006 from http//www. arlindo-correia. com/061203. html Knapp, Caroline. (1996). Drinking A Love Story. New York, Bantam Dell, A Division of Random House.