It was simple, incredibly difficult, and one of the most exquisite, life-giving things you can ever learn to do: to witness yourself, without judgment, as you struggle to stay. We can go a long time pretending and thinking we’re doing it right this way, building big, complicated lives on a false foundation. While I’m not denying the pain and trauma that ripple through the lives of the addicted, nor the responsibility to face and heal what we can, the idea that there’s no real loss for us when we give up drinking, that we’re not entitled to grieve because we’ve brought this upon ourselves, these are destructive, insidious lies.

We Are the Luckiest - Foreword Reviews Review of We Are the Luckiest - Foreword Reviews

Dare I say that this is required reading for ALL, regardless of where you fall on the alcohol-consumption spectrum?The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. I think this book is so well-written and can appeal to anyone either questioning their addiciton or in recovery. Furthermore, as someone in long term sobriety, I found her writing and the tools she provided gave me an insertion point from where I am in my life today. A raw, gritty, unflinchingly honest memoir of the author's drinking life and journey to and through sobriety. I also haven't experienced substance abuse problems myself (not what most people would consider as such, anyway), but I felt this book spoke to me and my complicated feelings about alcohol / drugs in general.

We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

Each chapter was organized to fit each of the nine “things” and made is such an interesting and insightful read. We think it is the aloneness we fear, but I believe what we actually fear is not having a home within ourselves. It’s yet another face of the corrosive shame that keeps us bound and tortured in the cycle of addiction.

what it's like to hear something that you can't unhear - when a little piece of truth lodges itself into your psyche and won't leave you be. They don’t see that humility is not an admission of weakness but a result of knowing exactly how powerful you are. That somewhere within me there was a primal wisdom I could not possibly understand or access, but that not being to didn't make it any less real. I believed if I could only hang on for long enough, eventually it would all disappear inside me, like salt dissolving into water. Part memoir, part beginner’s guide to “sobriety” (the author reveals at the end the she was taking Ambien every night while she wrote the book)- at times astute,

About 1 — Laura McKowen — Author

Fortunately, I seem to have found the "sweet spot" for me: I still enjoy a glass of wine, or occasionally two, but the days of drinking to the point of blackout, sickness, or hangover are behind me -- thank god. It's being willing to look at it all with clear eyes - to have compassion for the reasons people fell short but also to admit that they did. It transmutes the bitterness of pain and dishonesty and shame into something else, something we can actually live in and stand on.It's also easy to see the value in how it will help many others who are in early sobriety or sober curious or struggling with issues other than alcohol or substances. Whether you’re just starting out or have been sober for decades, McKowen instructs us to be kind to Change is messy and progress is rarely linear, but we can always push off from here .