Drink too much?
One author below is a practicing physician in London who brings decades of personal and professional experience to the question of . The other, now a well-known “quit lit” author, began her own sobriety, states her newest book blurb, “by asking herself a simple question: Why was she drinking so much despite wanting to stop?”
I. by Dr. Charles Knowles (2026)
His own relationship with alcohol “ended with a half-empty bottle of Bacardi, a gun, and thoughts of suicide,” per Kirkus Reviews, but this book is not about goading others into quitting. It’s about examining the topic both personally and professionally and encouraging readers to increase their understanding of a complicated and fraught subject.
“Though not every person who drinks is addicted to alcohol or exhibits problematic behavior, many of us are reexamining our relationship with a drug that is legal, socially condoned, and often more dangerous than we like to acknowledge. The paradox, of course, is that drinking feels good to so many” (Kirkus).
Publishers Weekly: “He touches on the motivations for alcohol use, both external—toasts at weddings, after-work camaraderie with colleagues–and internal, like providing a pick-me-up when feeling down, or a jolt of ‘Dutch courage’ (a term dating to the 17th century when soldiers heading to the front lines were given a shot of gin). Knowles unpacks how alcohol hijacks the brain’s internal reward systems while damaging individual and collective well-being—aside from being a risk factor for a long list of diseases and mental health issues, alcohol misuse is estimated to cost the public $250 billion a year in healthcare, crime, and lost economic productivity.”
II.
From a previous bestselling book by Grace, This Naked Mind: “It’s costing you money, health, friendships, and maybe even your marriage. Your conscious mind knows all of this. The problem is that your unconscious is continuously assaulted with messages about the ‘joy’ it brings and the stress it relieves.”
Another Naked Mind quote: “When promoting alcohol, marketers sell a better human experience: relief from the human condition. And in doing so, we promise the opposite of what alcohol really provides. We sell happiness where there is pain. We sell romantic relationships when alcohol destroys healthy, fulfilling relationships. We sell sex when drinking deadens your senses and, as a depressant, actually decreases sexual desire…”
(See previous post, “Dry January Versus “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace.”)
Live Naked AF, according to the publisher’s description, “helps readers understand their own unique programming and introduces a powerful framework for habit and behavior change called Affective Liminal Psychology.™ Annie’s approach is based on the idea that our habits are wired into our subconscious mind and tied to our emotions, and so how we feel about an unhealthy behavior is a major driver of our success in removing it from our life. Live Naked AF proposes the radical idea that we have the power to reprogram our subconscious – and go from loving alcohol to leaving it behind.”
