Drink

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.