Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
" A] noteworthy examination of women and alcohol delivers compelling personal stories that illuminate previously neglected aspects of this devastating social problem." -- Publishers Weekly
Mixing cutting-edge research with affecting stories of women who struggle with alcohol problems, Happy Hours challenges our assumptions and expands our awareness of the role alcohol plays in women's lives.
In this important book, Devon Jersild explores the common cultural forces that influence a woman's drinking--trauma, sexual abuse, and marital status. Jersild has spoken to treatment specialists, doctors, therapists, and counselors, and interviewed women who share their often dramatic stories. Her research findings are a wake-up call to many women who are in the dark about the effect of drinking on their mental and physical health. For example:
Women metabolize alcohol differently from men, more quickly developing such physical complications as liver disease, high blood pressure, and hepatitis.Female alcoholics are twice as likely to die as male alcoholics in the same age groupA female alcoholic is more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, which may not go away even if she stops drinking.An astonishing four million women in the U.S. meet the diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence.Happy Hours is not just about alcoholics. It is aimed at any woman who has ever wondered whether she drinks too heavily or too often, and at anyone who has a sister, mother, grandmother, child, or friend whose drinking has caused them concern.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0060192682
ISBN13:9780060192686
Release Date:January 2001
Publisher:Harper
Length:400 Pages
Weight:1.55 lbs.
Dimensions:1.3" x 6.1" x 9.3"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
One of the top three books for women in recovery
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
I decided to review the top books that my recovery coaching clients and the members of my San Francisco chapter of Women for Sobriety found helpful. Number One is Sober for Good (Fletcher). Number two is Turnabout (Kirkpatrick). The reason I suspect that Happy Hours only rates number three is that the others are easy reads, heavier on personal story, which God knows we need so much when we are trying to figure out how to get sober. Jersild is helpful when you have detoxed and are trying to understand how you got where you are and what to do next. Jersild has no agenda about what approach works. I find this wonderfully refreshing. If you want to know the next four top books, send me an email, I'm putting a bibliography together.
She wrote the book for her sister, an alcoholic
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
Happy hours by Devon Jersild, is a book I would recommend to any woman who struggles with drinking at some point in their lives. It is written because AA is tailored towards men. Most recovery programs are, and they are sometimes hard for a woman to grasp the different thinking and tailored approach, alot of twelve step and treatment programs have. We are unique in our disease, and alcohol effects women in different ways then men. This is described in the book, it tells us how we can learn from stories of other women. I gained strength in reading what each woman had gone through. Some of the reading is a little technical about statistics and terminology that would be better suited for a chemical dependancy counselor, but I got through that short part and was able to finish the book.
An Intimate, Heartfelt Book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
I read HAPPY HOURS with a growing sense of relief. At last somebody has looked at a serious issue for women with a strong inside view, and with understanding. Jersild's sister was an alcoholic, and she came to this subject from the experience of despair so familiar to member's of an alcoholic's family. Her slow discovery of the complexity of the issue is part of the book's narrative, which looks at this issue from many angles and incorporates myriad voices. This is a thorough study of a horrible problem, and readers who suffer from alcohol abuse or who have members of their families who do will find enlightenment in these pages.
An important study of a major problem
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
HAPPY HOURS is an important study of a major problem that reads itself like a novel or book of stories. Jersild is a beautiful writer, and she shapes the individual stories of these distressed women with consummate care and a poet's eye for details. The information presented is succinct and useful. This book should be standard reading on the subject for years to come.
Destined to be a Classic
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
With "Happy Hours," Devon Jersild has taken her place in the front ranks of American social journalism and literary nonfiction. She has identified, researched and brilliantly set forth a topic of urgent concern-women afflicted with alcoholism-that until this book had remained "invisible" as a distinct and singular crisis in our society. The breadth of her scholarship and personal reporting is prodigious. But perhaps the book's true distinction lies in the quality of its prose. Clear, free from fashionable shrillness and polarizing accusation, precisely phrased and hypnotically compelling, it moves us along a powerful narrative line into a terrifying shadow-world previously known only to its suffering denizens and a few of their friends and loved ones. By shining her beacon of compassion and truth into these shadows, Devon Jersild has taken the first step toward alleviating its many sorrows and dangers. This book will stand alongside those of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Simone de Beauvoir in the literature of reclamation.
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
