Drunkard: A Hard-Drinking Life

I rarely write negative reviews because who has the time, and really it feels like wasted energy. I'm going to make an exception here, because people thinking about buying this probably have a problem themselves and are looking for both comradery and some sense of hope. Avoid this book.I've read plenty of QuitLit as probably most people thinking of buying this book have (or will do eventually). Some is good, some is meh, but this one stands out as awful. Unless you enjoy arrogant, self centered, judgmental, angry men bitching at you for a few hundred pages about how gosh darn hard life is. If that's your jam, get on this book right now.Look, I'm a straight white dude, upper middle class I suppose, and my Wokeness Quotient is about a 6 out of 10 on a good day and this book offended me plenty. The guy cannot talk about a woman without describing if she is "beautiful" and sexy (his description of his niece, cool move Uncle Neil!) or much more commonly, how ugly/plain/round faced/squinty eyed/dumpy/frumpy/fat they are. He reserves such scrutiny for dudes to a single guy, his former boss, who is apparently more handsome than Hugh Grant.The entire book is a long wailing lament about how he just can't get hammered every day anymore at his columnist job at a Chicago paper. Said job at least from his description amounts to going to bars, writing his opinions on life now and then, then going to bars. Yet he maintains a tremendous sense of his self-importance, superior intellect to literally everyone he meets or knows, and an aggrieved bitterness at how damn hard he works compared to his stay-at-home wife (who also seems to deeply dislike him for the most part, and who could blame her). His fellow addicts are all losers and pathetic, his doctors and therapist are inept and idiots, and he is just. way. too. smart. for this world.All of this might be fine if the book had any kind of message of change or hope or delight or even equanimity around moving past drinking. Spoiler: it does not. He's a hateful, depressed, spiraling mess until the very last page of the book where he gives you a "welp, I have quit for now!" and it's all over.If you want a book about severe alcoholism from a creative-industry male with acerbic wit, a strong sense of self entitlement and one's own brilliance but with an actual message and person you can maybe like, go with Augusten Burroughs. Take a pass on this one.

First things first -- this is very well written book by someone who can actually write. A little ironic, a little funny, a little depressing, and a little bit uncomfortably over-intimate, in the tradition of the modern memoir. I saw it at my local bookstore last week (but ordered it on my Kindle) and picked it up on a whim. I'm not really sure how the book would come off to people who don't have problems with drugs or alcohol. I do, so a lot of it hit home with me. In one of those weird coincidences that make you wonder if the universe is trying to send you a personal message, I am 43 (like the author), I have two young children (like the author), I went to Northwestern (like the author), I lived in Winetka (near the author), and I have been drunk in virtually every Chicago restaurant and bar mentioned in the book (like the author). Oh, and this is my first year of sobriety. So, this hit weirdly and uncomfortably close to home for me. Lest you get the wrong impression, the book is not all melodrama; there is a lot of wry humor in the book that I deeply appreciated. If you have a drinking problem or know somebody who does -- or if you just want a peek into that world -- I would definitely recommend this book.

I am a regular reader of Mr. Steinberg's Sun-Times column, and was impressed by the grace and humility he exhibited when addressing his struggle. I have eagerly awaited his memoir of the experience, and was not disappointed. Steinberg does not hide his selfish, hurtful behavior nor the fortress of lies he built to conceal it. His story is difficult to read - and it must have been excruciating to write.There is no happy ending for alcoholics/addicts and their families; at best, there can be healing and a commitment to pursuing a hopeful future. Steinberg is a fortunate man - he was forced to confront his disease in time to save his family, his job, and his life. Sharing his story is a grateful man's way of acknowledging his good fortune and making restitution to the world at large.I highly recommend this book for anyone who struggles with substance abuse, for those affected by a loved one's struggle, and for anyone who seeks an education about addiction in the real world.

Bought the paperback after owning the hardbound as he changed the ending. As an addiction counselor, I had written him letting him know that the ending to the first edition left the impression that near-beer with a half percent of alcohol might be all right. It is not, as I have taken so many histories where relapse began with near beer. Sometimes one does not get a second chance at recovery and, if one does, everyone says it is much harder. It is sort of like how much colder it feels to get back in the water after getting out even on the hottest day. Had to have it.

Mr. Steinberg opens an amusing window onto the life of a newspaperman with a predilection for drink. Though this may not be the first book of its kind and subject matter, it may well be significant as the last whilst the slow funeral of print journalism marches on. Working in the "Look at Me!" genre that is the memoir, Mr. Steinberg provides ample voyeuristic thrills and salacious chills albeit via an armored and highly cultivated exhibitionism. Trouble is, not long into the book this reader tired of the misogyny, classism, cynicism and round contempt for anyone who cannot immediately gratify his ego, including most of the time, his family. The story of a lousy guy who passively fell into a lousy pastime, shelved said lousy pastime and still felt lousy but accomplished as a consequence; a reduction, no doubt, but not far from the truth of my experience of this book. Insult to injury, Mr. Steinberg's conclusions are rife with end-of-journey plaudits and epiphanies -- gift wrapping -- and the whole enterprise seems a little shabby and feels a little light.

This is by an old-style "hard-drinking" Chigago newspaperman i.e. pissed everyday for decades and always drunk when he got home, always drunk at any family / social occasion (his wife was never drunk, I think he would have been outraged if she was). Oh, and and had children thru all of this.Steinburg was arrested when he hit his wife when drunk and she called the cops on him; he was arrested, jailed, forced to attend a sobriety program and suspended from his job. He had earned his living up until then with a weekly column in a Chigago newspaper entirely about his happy family life - the kind of "rueful" would-be-humerous tripe that US columnists have been turning out for decades. So his arrest (and subsequent publicity) obviously faced him with a dilemma (i.e. how do I now turn a buck). This book would seem to be his first tentative answer.Its the storey of his "journey" to sobriety via AA and seems to be his answer to that professional dilemma (what the f*** do I write about now?). I must admit, I found it up-chuckingly repulsive. His disdain for other AA members he was forced to associate with - well, etc etc really, it all stinks, I could go on for pages (he forgives himeself everything, he's a keen critic of others behavior, you get the type?).And I got the feeling thoughout that he is still a very very angry man (mainly becuase he keeps saying how angry his is / was, at his wife for reporting him to the cops when he hit her, LOL, - although in the last chapter, everything is ok of course, and he loves her dearly).It left me with the feeling that at least the womens movement achieved one thing - 40 years ago he'd have got aways with this indefinately. With a good lawyer, she brought him to heel. But really, its a worthless book by a not very pleasant man.

Not much for writing a long review but I absolutely loved this book !!