Drunk Mom: A Memoir

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But she was freed from prison after judges at the Court of Appeal, in London, reduced her sentence to 16 months and suspended it. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned. But a month after the champagne celebration of her son’s birth, she was stashing mickeys in her diaper bag—and going to dizzying, desperate lengths to hide her problem from her partner, family and friends. If you like to think about the ways in which love can sometimes fail to transform us though, this is definitely a worthwhile listen.

I admit that I still have moments when I get caught up in the illusions of a kidfree party life — especially on those under-slept days. Although she was elated by her child’s birth, wanted desperately to be a responsible mother, and feared that her son would be taken from her if she kept drinking, she simply could not stop. And every morning I would wake up relieved and disappointed I was still here—relieved because I loved being a mother and disappointed I was the only mother I could give my son. Suddenly, she got up, rummaged on the shelf behind her and thrust the book right into my lap, knocking over a small pile of handouts that swooshed off her desk.I hid it from my boyfriend — who eventually stopped going out so much — and my family, but they caught on. These days, it’s a lot easier to go to those; with access to wifi and the “ Everything AA” app , there’s always a zoom room somewhere where people like me can help each other get sober, day and night. That may be poetic and true for her, but it does not make this a memoir about motherhood anxiety or a cautionary tale about what happens when Mommy needs a drink too many.

Maybe because her book reflects so vividly on the human condition and all its frailties and inconsistencies. Without glibness, without self-pity, knowing that she risks being judged, Bydlowska tells her story. Like many women, Clare Pooley found the juggle of a stressful career and family life a struggle, so she left her successful role as a managing partner in one of the world's biggest advertising agencies to look after her family. Last summer I saw a “me” from 2005 — a long-haired 20-something girl in a ridiculously short pink skirt and heels, walking home through Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto.That glorious, intoxicated morning is the perfect summary of my twenties, especially on days when I try to figure out why now, at 34, I’m such a wimp about being up early. Deciding not to go down the path her parents went, she rises above her circumstances again and chooses the path of recovery. I’m gluing together all the pieces that are falling off with all that nail polish and fur and other crap. What’s most harrowing about Drunk Mom is that you can’t stop reading it—this, the dark, now-told tale that lurks in the shadow of every seemingly normal family. Today, I’m still hoping for that and nothing else; today I’m only glad that, almost a decade later, the story I wrote is letting me chip away at secrets of failing and succeeding again.

For so long it was just a book I was working on, and now suddenly it's a memoir, and it has me in it.With no sign of a break-in, no history of marital problems, and the naïve belief that these things sometimes just happen, Stefanie Rabinowitz's family prepared to bury the 29-year-old wife and mother.