Navigating Compulsion

Drinking Games packed a punch and too many blackouts. This memoir is written by Sarah Levy, a smart girl living in New York brought up in a close nuclear family. Sarah has a younger brother and is obsessively close to her mother.

Sarah worked hard, a good student and all the time, wanting to be perfect. She often had unrealistic ideals based on her personality or made-up identity. Highly sensitive, Sarah reacted negatively to almost any outlandish remarks and her response was to drink heavily at a young age. She suffered from blackouts; in fact, when she awoke many mornings, she had no idea where she was or who was in the same bed. Every so often, she was in the hospital when she suffered severe blackouts or injuries. She was anchored to alcohol to cover up her insecurities and reality.

Sobriety was the only solution to her many weaknesses and bad behavior. She tells us about horrific experiences, terrible degradations and heartbreaks. Drinking really never made her feel better but her vulnerability took precedent. Not unusual, she was insecure as millions of girls and young women in our social media world. Expecting to thrive on her women friendships, they were often precarious incidents and deep hurt.

The expectation of the book to be somewhat chronological was lost. As I was reading, it appeared that the sections were disjointed. She started with the solution and then jumped back and forth introducing the reader to various episodes. The author was significantly influenced by women and men. Unfortunately, the chronicle became repetitive.

Sobriety was the solution and Ms. Levy is the epitome of a heroine. She hardly stumbled and liked herself more every day. Sure, she still had obsessions and insecurities. So many of us have and are not alcoholics. The memoir would have been easier reading if the writing was sequential. Unfortunately, the sequences mirrored her confusion.


My gratitude to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sarah Levy thought of herself as fun and flirty, living the dream in New York City. She couldn’t remember the fun she had because of the blackouts, but that’s life with partying right? Until she gets sober and takes us along with her journey.

I give pretty much all memoirs five stars, but I’m not saying that to minimize this book. As memoirs typically are, it was authentic and brave. We don’t just get a bunch of crazy, wild party stories, we get a lot about the transition into sobriety and there’s just so much to it.

“This life, the one I had built for myself, didn’t fit into a phone screen. It was bold and uncomfortable, occasionally messy and imperfect.“

Drinking Games comes out 1/3.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was on a complete memoir kick in November & this ARC rounded out the month. I was drawn to the premise of it.. a young woman talk about her sobriety. Sarah Levy really lade it all bare in this memoir. My generation and the culture around drinking has became 'normal'. There's booze at every event and Sarah talks about it even going into how Bachelor Monday's were fueled by alcohol. Some people can handle that, some people take it a drink or 10 too far.

Sarah's honesty about her struggles with alcohol and her body image were honest. She talks about how tough it is as a woman in her 20's to date, go to weddings, or exist without booze. There was a chapter about wedding planning that truly hit me right in the feels.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Drinking Games is a brave piece of writing that feels more like a collection of essays, each chapter more relatable than the next. Even if you're not considering going sober or you're someone who can have just one... I still recommend you pick this up. It's always good to take a look inward, feel uncomfortable and try to push yourself to be the best version. Proud of you, Sarah! It wasn't an easy journey I am sure, but a necessary one.

Ok, I will confess that I picked this book because I genuinely thought it was a humorous memoir or collection of essays by the Sarah Levy of Schitt's Creek fame. I guess that I should have read the description in a bit more detail, because this was not really humorous and it was written by another Sarah Levy. But once I start a book, no matter how wrong I am about the premise, I keep going.

I truly enjoyed this book and getting some insights into addiction and, in the case of Levy, serial compulsions. The book is easy to read and moves at a good pace. I did find that the lack of linear progression to the story - the approach being a bit less memoir and more collection of interlinked essays - got frustrating as the book progressed because things started to repeat but also things started to repeat in ways that made me go back to see if the story was different because it had that "wait, I read this already but it didn't quite read like this the first time" feeling. I had to keep checking that Levy hadn't messed up her own history. My preference after about the first 100 pages was that Levy had stuck to more of a standard memoir, because I didn't really want to keep bouncing through events from one period of her life to the next; my brain likes things to flow consecutively in memoirs. Like she meets Adam and goes on dates with Adam at multiple points in the story and while each is tied to a different chapter theme, they make for a bit of a disconnect with the flow.

In the end, I did enjoy the book. I also think that it paints a picture for how people deal with addiction and how coming to your big moment will be different for everyone. It also is a very frank portrait of how alcohol can truly confuse your perception of self worth. No one should wake up in bed with someone they don't know after a night of drinking, and there were many moments in the book where I thought that she skipped the implications of that (i.e. rape or non-consensual sex). The same can be said for the eating disorder that is mentioned many times but never really captured. So, in the end, this was a book that focused very heavily on alcohol addiction and depicted both the good and bad of moving from addiction to sobriety.

Title: Drinking Games
Author: Sarah Levy
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
Memoir
Essays
Sobriety
Vulnerability

My Thoughts:
This was such a vulnerable memoir. I loved hearing Sarah's story of becoming sober and her realization that she needed to throughout her stories. I think alcoholism is something that more people suffer from than we realize because it has become such a coping mechanism for a lot of people and it's legal. It was especially interesting for me to read because Sarah and I aren't that different in terms of age, thoughts, and other things and alcoholism is something that I could have easily fallen into myself. I hope this memoir finds everyone that needs it because it was truly an eye opening read.

In Drinking Games, author Sarah Levy shares the story of her unhealthy relationship with alcohol and what contributed to her decision to quit drinking.

Although I didn’t find Levy’s story particularly unique or compelling, she is definitely a talented writer and constructs readable and interesting prose. I will be keeping an eye out for her future work.

I loved this book.
This was a heartfelt memoir that, on the surface, is about a young woman’s alcohol use disorder and how she got and stayed sober. However, it’s about so much more than that. The author touches on imposter syndrome, anxiety/depression, and eating disorders. I have never had an issue with drinking but I found that other parts of her story really resonated with me. She is of my generation and she is candid about her need for validation and people-pleasing tendencies and how that affected her self-confidence. She writes about the damage that social media can have on our feelings of self-worth. And she talks of the constant striving for excellence that many of us (particularly women) felt as young adults while also feeling the pressure to maintain an appearance of effortless perfection.

I am now in my 30s and relatively settled in life but I wish I had read this book in my 20s. I think it’s full of wisdom.

Absolutely loved this brave, open memoir from Sarah Levy. She uses her struggles with alcohol as a jumping-off point, but she also discusses the darker sides of other (seemingly innocent) aspects of life: social media usage, obsessions with clothing/image, skincare, the "wellness" industry, etc. I think most women (especially millennials) will find something relatable in this book.

Absolutely fantastic plot! Could not put the book down once I began reading it. Cannot wait for it to be released. Will recommend it to everyone I know!

What an excellent, honest, and much-needed memoir. There were so many relatable moments throughout Sarah's story that reminded me of how important it is that we take the shame or "weirdness" out of a sober lifestyle in a world where so many social events revolve around alcohol. I have so much admiration for Sarah for the way she so beautifully told the struggles of alcoholism in different stages, and how the journey of sobriety is truly a never-ending and nonlinear one. Thank you to Sarah Levy, Netgalley, and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy of such an engaging and important work! I truly wish this book could have landed in front of a younger version of me, and I hope that so many others (young women especially) find safety and strength in Sarah's words!

DRINKING GAMES follows author Sarah Levy’s experiences with alcoholism to sobriety. Her memoir is written well and I finished this in a day.
Levy’s stories about the period of her life where she would get black out drunk were uncomfortable, but it was interesting to me how she explored alcohol in his memoir. Obviously her relationship with it impacted her relationships with others, but I thought the commentary on how societal expectations play a role was very interesting.
It was very relatable how all types of social events have an expectation for you to drink. As a woman, if I said no to a drink, it was always met with side eye like are you pregnant or do you have a problem. There is so much stigma around alcohol so while Levy’s specific experience may not be relatable to all, I think there a nuggets in here that could resonate with everyone.
Thank you St Martin’s Press for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Sarah Levy has written a memoir that joins the ranks of Caroline Knapp's Drinking a Love Story as an essential women's recovery book. With admirable vulnerability, Levy lays bare her relationship with alcohol in a series of interconnected essays that mix humor and palpable rawness. A vital read for anyone thinking about changing their relationship with alcohol, Levy's book charts a lost young woman's journey to finding herself and freedom from alcohol.

Disclosure I received a free copy of this book through netgalley. This review is my honest opinion .

I really enjoyed Sarah Levy's account of being a woman in her 20s and struggling with issues that many of us face-body insecurities, dating and friendship woes, and how these really contribute to the culture of binge drinking. A lot of sobriety memoirs focus on the rock bottom moment, but I think she did a great job of changing that narrative, and how important it is to normalize conversations around alcohol use that's unhealthy. She also provides some really insightful experiences of life after quitting-navigating dating, holidays, work situations that revolve around drinking, and the pressures of social media. Really great debut, and as someone who reads a lot of memoirs about substance use and mental health, this one takes a unique and fresh approach to the subject.

Although I am not sober myself, I enjoy reading books about sobriety because I think there's always room for improvement in your relationship with alchohol. That being said, I loved this book. Sarah Levy was completely transparent about her struggles and issues with drinking and I never once felt she was coming from a place of judgement. I think this book will help so many and I'm so glad it exists.

This is the first addiction memoir I think really speaks to younger millennial women, connecting the ideas about gender, feminism, womanhood, and work that we received in our teens to the thorny issue of alcohol and substance abuse. I loved the author's frankness and her gentleness. Going to recommend this in and out of class, especially for the way it talks about gender, substances, and the body.

Feel very mixed about this book. While it gives plenty of insight into what alcoholism and sobriety can look like for a young woman, I don’t think she did enough to acknowledge the incredible amount of privilege she had, the issues around (not) consenting to sex while blackout drunk, nor any science or real research around recovery. For people struggling with moderation while drinking or who know someone who is, this could offer some helpful insight (she is in a healthy and happy place when she concludes the book) but I believe she is still early in her recovery/healing journey.

Some of my favorite quotes:

“But the truth was, I was powerless over alcohol. When I drank, I lost control. In the presence of alcohol, I put myself in dangerous situations, woke up next to strangers, and lost huge chunks of my memory…A few months into sobriety, it hit me: the insanity of my drinking was my inability to accept that it wasn’t serving me. Once I fully accepted that I simply couldn’t drink safely, I felt an incredible amount of relief. I didn’t have to work harder to be “better” at drinking. I just could not drink.”

“It took me years to understand that the outsides didn't matter; the shame, anxiety, frustration, and loneliness I felt after I drank qualified me for sobriety. And in time, I learned that rock bottom, like anything else, looks different for different people.”

“I hope that social stigma around alcohol use disorder, treatment modalities, and sobriety shifts one day. But until then, I'm trying to keep it simple. I think about my recovery meetings in the same way I think about yoga classes: they are a practice and part of my routine that allow me to show up as a present participant in my life. Along the way, they taught me to ask for help, introduced me to women who built big lives without a drink, and offered me a place to go when I felt lost. Most of all, they gave me what I searched for in every cocktail: the deepest, purest, and most genuine belief that everything was going to be okay. For that, and so much more, I'm grateful.”

✨BOOK REVIEW✨
Drinking Games
By Sarah Levy

This book was so refreshing! It was such a great memoir and it didn’t seem to sugar coat the topic at hand.

In Drinking Games, Sarah Levy takes us through her story of her toxic relationship with alcohol.

As having struggled with alcohol, and the life that goes with it myself in my younger years, there were parts of this memoir that read like a mirror to me.

Levy speaks about how her last drink was just the beginning of her life, something it took me much longer to realize.

I greatly enjoyed this one, and how it addressed the issue of not only alcoholism, but also the feelings of pressure that young women in society endure in all aspects of life.

Highly recommend this one!
It’s out on January 23rd, 2023!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thanks so much to @sarahplevy for sharing her incredible story. Thanks also to @stmartinspress and to @netgalley for sending me an ARC of this wonderful book, in exchange for my review.

QOTD: Do you enjoy reading Memoirs?
For me it depends on the topic and the person. Loved this one❤️

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Thank you Netgalley for this audio edition of Drinking Games by Sarah Levy.

This is a memoir read by Levy about her relationship with alcohol as she grows up. It's incredibly honest and gritty, and I learned a lot. She also warns about modern day issues people face today, disordered eating, perfectly curated social media presence, and mental illness. I can see this as a huge balm for anyone, especially young people who experience these things. It was also an enjoyable and very well written read.

In this memoir, Levy lays it out on the line about her struggles and addiction to alcohol. I found myself laughing with her, crying at some of her stories and even relating in some level to the struggles she has on a social level. Her voice and prose is truly relatable and authentic - I could feel myself with her on this ride.

Sometimes in memoirs, I feel the authors can try too hard to “get” their audience, but in this case, Levy didn’t have to try at all; she had me from the first page. Her analysis of AA and the program was fresh and interesting. I think anyone that has a problem with addiction would find this memoir helpful or at least an enjoyable read.

I really feel like this book is for everyone. It’s so relatable and fun but also very (no pun intended … but maybe) sobering. The words really come from a place of honesty, self-love, and compassion. That starting place allows this book to be a pleasant and thought-provoking read, rather than a self-righteous, boastful read. Thank you for sharing your story with us, Sarah Levy!