Not Drinking Tonight

A Guide to Creating a Sober Life You Love

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By Amanda E. White, LPC

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In this honest discussion of mental health, the founder of Therapy for Women explores our reasons for drinking alcohol—and the benefits of taking a break.

When “retired party girl” and popular therapist Amanda White admitted she was an alcoholic, it wasn’t because she’d done something outrageous while under the influence, like land herself in jail or get married in Vegas. It was because she realized three things: 1. Alcohol was making her life worse. 2. Moderation wasn’t helping. 3. She could not be a therapist if she continued to use alcohol to numb her life. Something needed to change—not just her relationship with alcohol, but her relationship with herself.
 
Choosing not to drink can be daunting. It’s everywhere in our culture, our socializing, and our destressing. And it can seem black or white: you drink, or you don’t (and if you don’t, people ask why). That’s where Not Drinking Tonight comes in. Judgement-free and relatable, Amanda helps you unpack your relationship with alcohol by showing you how to:
  1. Find out why you drink. Whether it’s a glass of wine after work or a weekly bar crawl, your drinking habits can be the result of everything from biology to trauma.
  2. Heal your relationship with alcohol. Understand how your relationships have been affecting your life, and learn how to set boundaries and create true self care.
  3. Build the sober life you love. Learn what comes next—how to maintain your social life, navigate sex and relationships, and love yourself.
 
Not Drinking Tonight isn’t a program to stop drinking. It’s the first book to help you address the root issues that cause you to reach for a drink, and create a life you love—one that is not perfect, but is messy and real and one you are fully present for.

Excerpt

Introduction

“I’m sorry, you’re a what?” My mom stares at me with such genuine confusion I cannot tell if she is this shocked or truly didn’t hear the words that just came out of my mouth.

“I’m an alcoholic,” I stammer.

“I don’t understand.”

Of course, you don’t, I thought angrily. The truth is, I was not sure if I was an alcoholic, either, but I did know three things.

1. Alcohol was making my life worse. Did I drink every day? No. Did something terrible, or embarrassing, happen every time I drank? Also no. But every time something disastrous happened, I was drinking. And that scared the hell out of me. My drinking felt like Russian Roulette. Sure, most times I drank, things were fine. But when I did drink too much and lost control, I often became self-destructive. I got into huge fights with friends and said terrible things I didn’t mean… often disappearing from the bar without a trace. I drove drunk more times then I would like to admit and slept with strangers regardless of the promises I made to myself in the daylight.

2. Moderating wasn’t working. I tried all the things, including, but not limited to, not pregaming, not drinking hard liquor, only drinking hard liquor, not taking shots, only drinking shots (I cannot believe I thought that one was a good idea), only drinking wine, only drinking beer (which I hated the taste of ), measuring my drinks, only drinking on the weekend, not drinking more than three drinks, not drinking alone, and not drinking on an empty stomach. It wasn’t even that some of these things didn’t work. Sometimes I was able to stick to them for a period of time. But the rules didn’t prevent me from putting myself in dangerous situations or making poor choices. I spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to crack the code. I was like a mad scientist. I needed enough alcohol to drown out my social anxiety and make me extroverted, but not so much that I would be unable to hold a conversation or do something embarrassing. I needed enough alcohol to feel confident talking to guys, but not so much that I would sleep with them on the first date. It was absolutely exhausting.

3. I would not be able to become a therapist if I continued drinking this way. Because my drinking didn’t land me in rehab or jail, I was able to continue drinking while I was in graduate school to become a therapist. I showed up to my internship (which was at a drug and alcohol rehab) hungover more times than I would care to admit. I have vague and cringeworthy memories of declaring at my five-year high school reunion (in between deep chugs of cheap red wine, the kind that stains your teeth) that I loved helping addicts and alcoholics as if I were different from or better than them. Mind you, that evening I went on to get kicked out of the bar after stealing a bottle of vodka, followed by hooking up with a guy in a stairwell, falling asleep in the hallway of the hotel, and losing the most sentimental piece of jewelry I owned. The denial was thick to say the least.

It was not until a few months later, after a particularly hard night of partying that resulted in me binging and purging (relapsing in my eating disorder), that I woke up covered in my own puke and had to go teach a yoga class at 6 a.m. (while I was completely drunk) that some of the fog started to clear. What would my clients think if they saw me right now? I thought. It’s one thing to drink and work at an addiction facility, it’s another to be getting bombed and showing up to work hungover. I’m a fraud, I thought. Hot tears stung my eyes. That was the last day that I drank.

I want to be clear—that day wasn’t particularly special. I had moments like it before. I say this because I think there is an unfortunate narrative that tells people they need to “hit rock bottom” because they are only capable of changing on their lowest day. The truth is, I had showed up to work or called out due to being hungover before. I also had recognized the connection between my drinking and eating disorder, and talked about it at length with my therapist. It wasn’t my worst drunk or rock bottom by any means. It was just another bad night. The only difference was that on this day when my inner voice said I couldn’t go on like this, I listened. And more importantly, I took action. One step. That is all it takes.

So, back to the interaction with my mom… I was not sure if I fit the label of an alcoholic per say, but I did know I needed a change. I could see the direction that this was heading in and it wasn’t pretty. I was fortunate enough to be in group therapy at this time with a few individuals who were getting into recovery. Most of them were going to twelve-step meetings at the time and were able to find a sense of community and connection with others. I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting shortly after the last night I drank. There was a part of me that felt like I didn’t deserve to be there because my drinking wasn’t bad enough. I thought, I’m taking someone’s seat who really needs to be here! When I shared this with others, people were quick to tell me it was denial. I wasn’t sure if this was true, but I kept going to meetings. I found a meeting that was a general meeting for anyone in recovery and was geared toward younger people. This group became my support system, my lifeline, and my social life. To this day, some of my best friends are from that meeting.

About This Book

But this isn’t a story about my drinking, it is a story about your drinking. It’s a guide that lays out why you drink, how to stop drinking, and how to build a life that you don’t need to escape from. It’s a book about choice.i Most of us are never truly given the opportunity to question our relationship with alcohol. We are born into a set of cultural ideals that says that alcohol is a healthy part of adult life. We learn that alcohol is fun. It’s the glue that holds our social lives together (it gives us something to talk about, it makes us relatable, and signals to other people that we’re cool and don’t take ourselves too seriously). We learn that alcohol is the preferred way that adults deal with stress. And if, for some reason, you question your relationship with alcohol, you are either a loser or an alcoholic… take your pick.

This book isn’t a sobriety manifesto, a quitting memoir, or an addiction self-help book. I am not interested in trying to convince you why you should not drink. However, I am of the belief that many of us do not receive proper education about alcohol, and the costs and benefits of it. I don’t believe we are informed consumers. We grow up seeing everyone around us drink, we see adults and celebrities and people we look up to drink, and we want to be just like them. We then see it glamorized in TV, movies, social media, and ads. We are sold the idea that the loneliness, disconnection, and pain we feel isn’t because we are human (and that life sucks sometimes), it is because we are without a drink in our hand. This book is the guide I wish I had when I was questioning my drinking.

Throughout my years as a therapist, I’ve learned that almost all of us struggle with addictive patterns in some capacity. However, some patterns of behavior are more socially acceptable (or in some cases downright praised) than others. If you are reading this book, my guess is your addictive pattern is alcohol.

Other common ones include

Drug use

Dieting

Disordered eating (purging, starving, binging, excessive exercise, or a fixation with clean or healthy eating)

Gambling

Shopping

Workaholism/hustle culture

Romantic relationships or sex

Maybe you have some of these too. The truth is, our addictive behaviors make up only a small portion of what we are actually dealing with. A helpful way to understand this phenomenon is through the metaphor of an iceberg. Just like an iceberg, our visible behaviors only make up a small portion of what is going on. The other 85 percent of the iceberg is made up of the patterns, behaviors, and beliefs that create the structure of the iceberg itself. Until you work to heal the deeper part of the iceberg, you will always experience some kind of unhealthy behavior, just like an iceberg cannot exist without some piece of it residing under the surface. This book will focus on alcohol, but it will address other unhealthy patterns (especially disordered eating since that is so common in women) so that you can prevent addiction switching, or the whack-a-mole phenomenon when you get one thing under control only to have another pattern pop up in its place.

While this book will give you practical tools and tips for how to stop or reduce your alcohol intake, the majority of the book will help you address deeper reasons for your addictive patterns… or the submerged part of the iceberg. In the first section, why you drink, you will learn more about your mind and how shame and trauma are intertwined with your drinking. In the second part I discuss tools for how to stop drinking. This includes reparenting, emotion regulation, boundaries, and all the essential skills you will need to be able to heal the root of why you are drinking in the first place. In the final section, make it stick, we will talk about common pitfalls of early sobriety, how to socialize, date, have sex, and deal with your family and current relationships without alcohol.

I also discuss moderation tips for mindful drinking so you can decide if you want to quit completely or experiment with sober curiosity and moderation. I am of the belief that anyone, for any reason, can explore their relationship with alcohol. As my friend Millie Gooch says, “You do not have to wait until a fire engulfs your house in flames before you try and put it out. If you see a small blaze starting in the form of problem drinking, it’s okay to put it out before it burns down your house.”1 If you picked up this book, my guess is you are noticing the fires of unhealthy drinking. Think of this book as a fire extinguisher; use it to quell the flames and put the whole fire out if you choose.

This book is not just written by someone who quit drinking, it is also written by a licensed therapist who specializes in helping people change their relationship with alcohol. This means the information and story I tell are not just mine but snapshots of three women who together sum up the most common thoughts, fears, concerns, pitfalls, and struggles that I see in my clinical work and in research on this subject. Throughout the book we will follow these women and their journeys in exploring sobriety.

Andrea, a twenty-four-year-old Peruvian woman who immigrated to the United States as a child. She is now in medical school, engaged, and discovering how dependent she is on alcohol in order to feel social and let off steam on her days off.

Tara, a twenty-one-year-old white woman who has been in and out of rehab for the past few years. She knows for sure she needs to stop drinking but has a nasty habit of self-sabotage. Throughout her sobriety she uncovers the truth about her sexuality.

Brianna, a thirty-four-year-old Black woman who is married with two children. She finds herself relying on alcohol to deal with the transition to motherhood and quell the feelings of guilt about being a working mother.

These women are characters amalgamated from nearly fifty cases, so that I could be sure almost everyone who reads this book can find themselves in some aspect of each of these characters. While I firmly believe anyone, regardless of gender, can enjoy and learn from this book, this book does focus on the female experience of sobriety and the unique things women, especially millennial women, have to navigate within alcohol culture, such as mommy wine culture, eating disorders, and perfectionism.

By the end of reading this book, you will fully understand how and why you drink (or do any other addictive behavior) and create a life that you don’t need to escape from. Once you finish this book, you will understand how connected your relationship with alcohol is to your relationship with other areas of your life. This will give you the opportunity to make an informed decision about your drinking. In the therapy world, we call this informed consent. If a therapist doesn’t go over with a client how therapy works, the costs, and a therapist’s policies, education, and rates verbally, therapy is unethical. Think of this book as your informed consent about drinking. Whether you choose to go back to drinking or not at the end of this book is your decision. My job is not to convince you. My job is to give you the knowledge to create a life you love, one that is not perfect but is messy and real and one you are fully present for. A life without alcohol is possible and, dare I say, magical? Whether you choose that is up to you.

Footnote

i The word “choice” can be a controversial one in addiction circles as people who identify as alcoholics or addicts often discuss how they have no choice when it comes to using substances. I want to be clear that when I use the word “choice,” I am by no means trying to imply that alcoholics can choose to stop drinking whenever they want, and it is their fault if they don’t quit. This book is intended for individuals who are questioning their drinking, want to cut back, or don’t identify as alcoholics. I am by no meanings trying to encourage someone who identifies as an alcoholic to stop using that word or quit their twelve-step program.

1




Chapter 1

Would Your Life Be Better Without Alcohol?

I’d say the most common thing to do in the year before quitting booze is to hunch over a laptop and miserably type Am I an alcoholic? into Google at 1am.

—Catherine Gray

“It’s not like I can’t go a day without drinking,” Andrea says earnestly. She looks put together as always, wearing a button-down shirt tucked neatly into a high waisted skirt. A self-described perfectionist, Andrea and I have been working together for two months. In the past few sessions, we have been talking more about her drinking habits and how it impacts her anxiety, her relationship with her new fiancé, and her low self-worth, which she says she has struggled with since she immigrated to America from Peru at age nine.

“I understand,” I say, and I do, more than she knows. I myself sat on a similar looking couch and said the same exact thing to my therapist almost a decade ago.

“Sometimes I can go months without drinking. It isn’t even that difficult,” Andrea says, matter-of-factly. Her face searches mine for validation. I can tell she wants me to agree with her and move on to another topic, but she also knows me well enough to know I’m not going to let that happen.

“I believe you,” I say. And I do. She smiles.

Here’s the thing—I’m sure Andrea doesn’t drink every day and she probably has had periods of time when she didn’t drink. It’s just that the frequency of her drinking isn’t her issue. The issue is the impact that drinking has on her life. The truth is that Andrea, like many other women who come through my door, do not come to see me for “alcohol addiction” or their inability to stop drinking. They end up on my couch because they are depressed, anxious, have eating disorders, low self-esteem, don’t get along with their families, keep dating the wrong people, want more meaningful friendships, are unfulfilled with their careers, or any number of other things that seem to have nothing to do with alcohol consumption or any other addictive pattern of behavior… except they actually do. Of course, this is not to say that every one of these issues is caused by alcohol consumption or that every one of my clients needs to stop drinking to work through their issues. Quite the contrary. However, the way we, as a society, discuss alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorder is unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. In order to fully understand this, I think it’s important to dive into the history of alcoholism so we can understand how the stigma evolved and is perpetuated and how our current models of treating it are unsatisfactory in dealing with the current reality of the drinking landscape.

Despite the fact that recent studies show that individuals in the United States are drinking more in the past few years than ever before, and women especially are experiencing increasing health complications due to alcohol consumption, it is more stigmatizing to not consume alcohol than to consume it. Most women are more afraid of consuming sugar and artificially flavored foods than alcohol. Never mind the fact that alcohol, also known as ethanol, is the same substance we use to fuel cars. (Seriously, look it up if you don’t believe me.)

Alcohol is tightly woven into the fabric of our lives. Every major holiday in the United States incorporates alcohol. We use it to bond, connect, and commemorate weddings, funerals, dates, social events, good news, bad news, and almost everything in between. If someone says they don’t drink, we often assume the person is either religious, pregnant, or an alcoholic. In our society, those are the only reasonable reasons to abstain. Most doctors still tout the heart-healthy benefits of a glass of red wine without inquiring into the patient’s relationship with alcohol or how it may be causing or exacerbating their problems.

Andrea stares out the window and a childlike smile appears on her face as she sees a squirrel hopping across the window ledge. She appears to forget where she is for a moment. She then quickly turns back to me and re-furrows her eyebrows seriously.

“It’s just—I’m not an alcoholic. I know I’m not. I looked it up.” I take a deep breath as Andrea unfolds a piece of paper that she tells me she printed out from a website. Of course, Andrea printed out the criteria for alcohol use disorder. Our work is just beginning.

So often the question that clinicians (or in this case, concerned individuals searching the internet) focus on answering is “Is this person an alcoholic?”

Here’s the backstory—the term “alcoholism” was coined by a Swedish physician in 1849 and it became largely adopted throughout the world. This term referred mostly to the physiological damage of long-term drinking, not to any of the mental impacts of the disease. In 1918, when the American Medico-Psychological Association (which later became the American Psychiatric Association) created the first handbook of mental disorders, alcoholism was characterized by symptoms like hallucinations, tremors, delirium, amnesia, and paranoia. Safe to say, you had to have a pretty severe case to be diagnosed with alcoholism at this time. However, it is unclear what an acceptable level of alcohol ingestion looked like at the time considering this manual’s publication coincided with the temperance movement and prohibition.

Soon after the end of prohibition, in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was formed. The organization believed alcoholics had a physical allergy to alcohol which prevented them from drinking like normal people. And while they could never safely consume any amount of alcohol, they could recover and become functioning members of society if they admitted their powerlessness over alcohol, confessed their mistakes, and made amends for their wrongs. This was a huge breakthrough because up until then, alcoholics were widely considered to be morally bankrupt and disgraceful members of society with no hope of changing or recovering. For the first time, alcoholics had a safe place to get support and help rather than be sent away to rot in an asylum. (However, it’s important to note that AA originated as a puritanical religious group, which makes a lot of the program steeped in morality. The program’s rigidity can breed shame as people are taught that there are right and wrong ways to act, think, and recover. While AA was a revolution at the time and still continues to help millions of people, the program has been largely unchanged since its creation, which originally did not allow women or people of color to participate.1)

The stigma against alcoholics persisted throughout the twentieth century. It wasn’t until the third edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published in 1980 that alcoholism was classified as a primary disorder (rather than a personality disorder, which contributed to the stigma). Psychiatrists expanded the definition to include individuals who may not have developed a physical dependence or physiological damage. Of course, this led to a continuous debate among experts about how to separate “problem drinkers” from “alcoholics.” Fast forward to the current edition, DSM-5, released in 2013, which effectively created a spectrum of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) with three subtypes: mild, moderate, and severe.

Replacing the word “abuse,” which conjures negative connotations of destruction and harm, with “use” has made a difference in destigmatizing the disorder. Additionally, making it a spectrum allows healthcare providers to focus less on trying to decipher which disorder an individual has and instead recognize a range of symptoms that point to an individual having an issue with alcohol consumption. Adding in the “mild” subtype also makes it easier for individuals who don’t meet the criteria for alcohol disorder to get professional help. Unfortunately, a lot of stigma remains. I see it all the time in my practice. Due to AA’s popularity, most people still believe that they must label themselves as an “alcoholic” if they want to stop drinking. And given this fraught history with the label, it’s no surprise why the average individual resists calling herself an alcoholic.

I don’t blame Andrea for trying to convince me. The impulse makes perfect sense considering the enduring stigma. If you ask someone what they think an alcoholic looks like, most say an old man, who lost his family, home, and job, sitting on a stoop swigging from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. Of course, Andrea, the twenty-four-year-old engaged, marathon-running med student does not see herself as an alcoholic.

“Andrea, let me ask,” I say, “what exactly makes someone an ‘alcoholic’?”

She thinks for a moment. “Well, I typically think of someone who drinks every day, or can’t stop drinking. The image I have in my head is typically an older man with drinking problems, like mi bisabuelo. He was probably an alcoholic. Or there were definitely girls I went to high school with who were getting in tons of trouble for underage drinking and then later DUIs. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them was an alcoholic.”

“Ah, so someone either is an alcoholic or they’re not. They can’t become one?” I ask, trying to understand her point of view.

“I mean, I’m in medical school. I’ve studied alcoholism. It’s a disease and I know genetics play a large role. So according to the bio-psycho-social disease model, people are probably born with it, but then the problems aren’t revealed until later. Nobody in my immediate family is an alcoholic, so I don’t see how that could be me.”

Despite the APA’s attempts to destigmatize alcoholism by creating a spectrum and renaming it “alcohol use disorder,” the term “alcoholism” is still widely used. Part of this is because Alcoholics Anonymous has long been considered the dominant and only effective treatment for alcohol use disorders. Unfortunately, we don’t have much language for individuals to use to examine their relationship with alcohol without admitting they are an alcoholic.

This means that if someone thinks they may have a problem with alcohol, they google “Am I an alcoholic?” They check out some lists and typically find comfort in discovering that they don’t meet all the criteria. There are lots of tests online; Andrea has found the official eleven-point criteria from the current DSM for diagnosing alcohol use disorder. Keep in mind, the DSM is not intended for self-diagnosis. However, websites often list the criteria and say you can easily diagnose yourself, which of course leads to situations like the current one I am in with Andrea.

“Can I read it to you?” Andrea asks. I know the criteria by heart, but something tells me it’s important for Andrea to go through with her presentation so she can feel fully heard. “Go ahead,” I say. Andrea flattens her piece of paper and clears her throat.

1. Drinking more, or for a longer period of time than you intended.

Andrea says, “Yes, I’ve done that this year, but this just seems like a pretty ridiculous criterion. But yes, I’ll count it. That’s one.”

2. Having a desire to cut down or stop drinking but being unsuccessful.

“No, I haven’t been trying to quit and failing at it,” Andrea responds.

3. Spending a lot of time obtaining alcohol, drinking or recovering from it.

“No.”

4. Having a strong desire to use alcohol.

“No, I think I like it a regular amount,” Andrea says flatly.

5. Being unable to fulfill major role responsibilities at work, home or school due to drinking.

“No,” she quips.

Genre:

  • Not Drinking Tonight is a wonderful guide to setting healthy boundaries with alcohol—and yourself.  Amanda helps you dig into the root of your struggles to better understand why you drink and why you might want to stop--setting you up for a more fulfilling life all around, even if you don’t choose full sobriety. Readers will gain the self-awareness, compassion, and confidence to make choices that better serve them.”—Nedra Tawwab, MSW, LCSW, New York Times bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace
  • "Anyone wanting to change their relationship with alcohol must be willing to do some deep self-examination. Amanda White’s multi-layered approach offers empowerment, experience, and wisdom to those looking to begin their own journeys."—Annie Grace, author of This Naked Mind and The Alcohol Experiment
  • “A knowledgeable, compassionate, and supportive guide. With a wealth of examples, tools, practices, and new ways of relating to both alcohol and the self, Not Drinking Tonight will be an accessible and revelatory balm for anyone questioning the kind of life they want to create outside of drinking.”—Lisa Olivera, LMFT, author of Already Enough
  • "Amanda White is a gentle and wise guide on the journey toward living a sober or sober curious life. Not Drinking Tonight is full of relatable client stories and practical tools you can begin integrating immediately. A must read for anyone reconsidering their relationship with alcohol."—Vienna Pharaon, LMFT, founder of @mindfulmft and author of Origins of You
  • “I truly believe that anyone will benefit from reading this book, regardless of their relationship with alcohol. This book is such a great, relatable resource that will help us cultivate more self-awareness and compassion, while gently examining our relationship with alcohol, and ourselves.”—Caroline Dooner, author of the bestselling book The F*ck It Diet
  • Not Drinking Tonight is the book for anyone questioning their relationship with alcohol or other addictive behaviors. I love how this book pushes us to examine what we’ve been taught about alcohol, how it’s impacting us, and what we can do about it. This guide will help anyone who's ever felt stuck in their drinking habits, without slapping on scary labels or prescribing full sobriety.”—Whitney Goodman, LMFT, founder of @sitwithwhit and author of Toxic Positivity
  • "Not Drinking Tonight is so much more than a book about alcohol. Endlessly compassionate, and beautifully-researched, this book is a permission slip to evaluate your relationship to alcohol in a safe environment, as well as look at all the other factors that surround that decision. It's also a look into trauma, diet culture, and other societal conditioning through the lens of a relatable, thoughtful, and kind therapist. This book is the best kind of therapy." —Jamie Varon, author of Radically Content
  • “As a therapist, this is the book about drinking I have been waiting for. Not Drinking Tonight offers a fresh perspective on substance misuse and gently guides you, with relatable examples, how to choose to stop drinking tonight, tomorrow, and—if you want—forever. Finally, a book on drinking that I truly believe in and am excited to recommend to my clients.”—Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, relationship expert, founder of @lizlistens and author of I Want This to Work
  • “In this gentle, forthright, and actionable book, Amanda White busts the myth that we need to be at rock bottom to ask for help.  She challenges us to heal beyond the label we tie to our struggles and creates space for us to shed layers of shame, which keep us shackled to narratives of low self-worth. Whether you’re newly sober, not-yet-sober, toying with the idea of sobriety, or never even contemplated a life beyond sobriety until this very moment, this book has gems of wisdom to offer you on your journey.”—Jennifer R. Wolkin, PhD, (Dr. Jen), neuropsychologist and author of Quick Calm: Easy Meditations to Short-Circuit Stress using Mindfulness and Neuroscience
  • "This book has such potential to make a massive difference for the lives of so many. Written in a smart, relatable style, and rooted in actual therapeutic expertise, Not Drinking Tonight is the self-help resource manual that we need. With a combination of therapy vignettes, research-driven education, and applicable tools and skills, Amanda walks readers through a journey of gaining a deeper understanding of their relationship to alcohol, regardless of addiction status. I especially appreciated the education provided around trauma and reparenting. Amanda’s book is a resource that I know I will use for both myself and my clients for years to come- an absolute gift."—Dr. Colleen Reichmann, clinical psychologist & author of The Inside Scoop on Eating Disorder Recovery
  • "Not Drinking Tonight is an of-the-moment book that brings the #quitlit genre to the next level. White's writing about mental health and sobriety is just as helpful and accessible as her popular Instagram account."—Tawny Lara, sober sex & relationships writer
  • "In Not Drinking Tonight, Amanda White provides a compassionate and approachable path to help women critically evaluate the role of alcohol in their lives. Her compelling research and insights equip readers with the tools to not only reflect on, but also to re-envision, how we cope with common stressors like body anxiety and perfectionism in ways that help us reconnect rather than disconnect--with ourselves, our bodies, and everyone else."—Lindsay Kite, PhD, co-author of More Than a Body: Our Bodies are Instruments, Not Ornaments

On Sale
Jan 4, 2022
Page Count
272 pages
Publisher
Hachette Go
ISBN-13
9780306925856

Amanda E. White, LPC

About the Author

Amanda E. White, LPC is a licensed therapist and sought after mental health expert. She runs the popular Instagram account @therapyforwomen where she shares tools and insights on mental health and sobriety. She is the founder and director of Therapy for Women Center, a group practice in Philadelphia with therapists across the country. Her work has been featured in dozens of publications including the Washington Post, Forbes, Shape, Women's Health Magazine and more.

Learn more about this author