Lush: A Memoir

by Kerry Cohen

Overview

***As seen on NBC's TODAY Show***

When Loose Girl author Kerry Cohen reached her early 40s, she realized she was drinking too much. Her alcohol dependence was not obvious – she was still getting her kids to school in the morning and working a full day as a clinical psychologist. But when five o'clock rolled around, she was more than ready for a glass of wine. Or maybe two. Or maybe the whole bottle.

And while she may have been drinking alone, Cohen realized she was not alone in her struggle.

Lush is a fiercely honest exploration of the nature of alcoholism and alcohol recovery among middle-aged women, and Cohen's decision to use the controversial moderation management program to curb her nightly binges.

For any woman who has wondered how much wine is too much wine, Cohen provides a provocative and eye-opening look at the culture of drinking through the lens of her own experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492652199
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	07/17/2018
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	668,539
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Kerry Cohen is a doctor of clinical psychology and works as a licensed therapist in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of the memoirs Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity, Seeing Ezra: A Mother’s Journey Through Autism, Unconditional Love, and the Meaning of Normal, and Girl Trouble. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and Washington Post, and she has been a guest on Dr. Phil and Good Morning America. Her story was also featured on WE Network as part of the documentary The Secret Lives of Women. Visit her at www.kerry-cohen.com.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 I wasn't a drunk until I was 7

2 I have a hole 13

3 I was a consolation prize 21

4 I wanted to be better 35

5 I needed a goddamn break 51

6 I was something resembling happy 63

7 I failed at everything but sleeping 77

8 I fell into the drums 89

9 I'm killing myself because I can't get my shit together 101

10 I planned Bob's funeral 105

11 I quit drinking for a week 125

12 I didn't have to go that far 137

13 I met someone 149

14 I wished I had a different story 163

15 I refused to stop believing love was magic 171

16 I went to an ashram 179

17 I waited 191

18 I don't buy wine much 199

19 I smile hello 205

Reading Group Guide 209

A Conversation with the Author 213

Acknowledgments 219

About the Author 221

Editorial Reviews

"Raw, intimate and brave, Lush tears apart the usual advice about drinking and addiction (guess what, AA isn’t the only answer), and chronicles Cohen’s journey toward a healing that at first she can only image. Gorgeously written and audaciously intelligent, here is a controversial and compelling look at finding your own way back." — Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

"Kerry Cohen applies her legendary wit and sagacity to women’s often subtly destructive dance with alcohol. With great vulnerability and dynamic prose, Cohen examines her own descent into the bottle, its ruinous consequences, and her courageous fight to find her footing in her real life again. This is a story you won’t soon forget." — Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling memoirist of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and Everything You Ever Wanted

"Holy mother of wine—finally a woman wrestles the story of what it is really like to be a woman away from what we’ve been told we are supposed to be. Kerry Cohen’s Lush will light you up, crack you up, make you bawl, and most of all, allow you to breathe again. I’m beyond thrilled to read a book where a woman tells the truth without falling into the sap-hole of the sin-and-redemption narrative. There is no sin and redemption. There’s just our lives, and as Cohen reminds us one truth bomb at a time, they are messily gorgeous. Move over Mary Karr." — Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of The Book of Joan and The Misfit’s Manifesto

"I love this book. I am this book. Kerry Cohen has written a memoir that wrestles with the subtleties, the ambiguities, the sheer alluring horrifying real-life mess of mid-life alcohol addiction. For those of us wrestling with demons—and who isn't?—Lush is a solace as powerful as red wine." — Claire Dederer, bestselling author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

"Kerry Cohen has hit on something important that's rarely discussed — how the everyday disappointment of middle-age can lead to abuses one never imagined as a teenager. Her voice bristles with both vulnerability and sass; her observations and analyses are razor-sharp. This is about drinking, but also about the simple anguish of being human. I guzzled Lush in one long gulp." — Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel and How Georgia Became O’Keeffe

"Unapologetic in that it offers no trite "darkness to light" narrative about alcoholism, Cohen's book instead offers a sharp-eyed look at what it means to be a midlife female unable to cope with either personal demons or the heavy external social pressures placed on women. An intimate and unsparing book of self-reflection. " — Kirkus Reviews

"An unflinching narrative of one woman’s journey to the bottom of her wine glass, over and over and over. " — The Oregonian

From the Publisher

2018-04-11
A therapist and writer reflects on how alcoholism unexpectedly overtook her at midlife.Cohen (Spent: Exposing Our Complicated Relationship with Shopping, 2014, etc.) "didn't fall in love with alcohol early in life." From adolescence onward, her real addiction was romance. Boys were her "salvation" from the pain of feeling unlovable. Only later was she able to admit they were what she used to stay away from relationships or when she got into them, "keep a foot out the door." After Cohen left an unfulfilling first marriage in her late 30s, she flung herself into the dating world by sleeping with a series of men over the next year. The last man, Bob, was one to whom she felt an especially intense attraction. Wine became their aphrodisiac of choice, "lubricat[ing] our conversations and enhanc[ing] our already fiery libidos." When they first got together, the author only drank when she was with him or with their friends. Her drinking worsened after she realized that Bob still felt a deep attachment to his first wife. Despite going to the gym, Cohen began gaining weight; she knew it was the amount of wine she had been drinking. Eventually, her relationship with Bob settled into a predictable cycle of withdrawal and reconnection. Marriage only made the situation worse between them: Eventually Bob took a lover and paraded her in front of Cohen. After the author fell deeply in love with another man who, like Bob, could not detach from a previous relationship, she finally began to work on her intimacy issues and start a moderation management program to lessen her use of alcohol. Unapologetic in that it offers no trite "darkness to light" narrative about alcoholism, Cohen's book instead offers a sharp-eyed look at what it means to be a midlife female unable to cope with either personal demons or the heavy external social pressures placed on women.An intimate and unsparing book of self-reflection.

Kirkus Reviews