Cleaning Up: How I Gave Up Drinking and Lived [Paperback]

'What sets this book apart from other similar memoirs is that it is not only very well written, it's actually useful, both for the sober and not-so-sober. It is illuminating about the inner emotional damage that leads to wildly self-destructive behaviour; and also about the society that allows such behaviour to flourish... pretty much unputdownable'

'Depicts with bravery and a blazingly defiant wit an ongoing struggle... Glyde provides more than a harrowing account... she explores why women drink and puts her experience into the context of a culture that deems alcohol inseparable from fun'

`A frank book, sometimes disarmingly so, and will worry many readers who may have a sneaking suspicion they drink a bit too much'

'A wonderfully candid insight into what could be any binge-drinker's life... Honest and educational without being preachy'

'Compelling and starkly candid'

`Insightful... the points raised are important. Cleaning Up is timely'

'Harrowing... unflinchingly honest... an absorbing personal account'

'Eminently practical and personal... one to recommend to the friend who needs to clean up'

A tour of one woman's life with alcohol, and why she decided to give it up. Our relationship with alcohol is the longest most of us will ever have, and the most intense, though few of us will ever admit it. It is blamed for the rise in street violence, and women's increased consumption of it is the cause of relentless moral panic, but it also provides the main route to sexual experience, and to experimentation with drugs, something that policy-makers are reluctant to admit. Tania Glyde explores the reasons why she drank in the first place, why she carried on doing it - and found it the most effective 'gateway drug' ever - and the long slow car-crash of life events that finally convinced her to give it up. Through her own story, she looks at why women are drinking more, suggests that they may be kidding themselves, and explains what it's like to break the national taboo and live without alcohol.

Tania Glyde is a UK based author and journalist. She has written two novels to date, Clever Girl and Junk DNA. Her short stories appeared in the Disco 2000 and Vox n Roll anthologies. She was Time Out's sex columnist for two years.