Seven Books That Changed How I Saw Alcohol And Myself
A deep dive into the books that rewired my thinking, helped me heal, and made sobriety something I wanted and not something I “had to do.”
When I first started questioning my drinking, I’m the first to admit I wasn't necessarily in crisis but I was most certainly in limbo. I wasn’t falling apart, but I wasn’t thriving either. I was exhausted, fed up of the 3am wake up, I was anxious and in a constant cycle of questioning, promising and rationalising. And underneath all of it, I felt disconnected from the person I wanted to be.
Sobriety wasn’t just about removing alcohol. It was also about understanding what had taken its place in my life and who I might become without it.
These seven books helped me get there and so I wanted to share them with you today. I know a lot of people throw themselves into sobriety books in the early days but sometimes there is benefit to revisiting them later on too, just to keep things fresh in your mind.
They offered so many things from understanding, science, compassion, and even humour. They offered me trust that I could do it and hope that sobriety would make a positive difference to my life. Each one became a kind of companion, a mirror or a mentor. Some made me cry and some made me angry but all of them made me think differently.
Whether you’re sober curious or further into sobriety and are looking to go deeper into the subject to safeguard against fading affect bias and forgetting the truth about alcohol, then here are some great summer reads for you and what I personally got out of each one.
When you’re looking to go sober it isn’t just about putting down the glass, it’s also about understanding and doing the deeper work. Looking at any patterns or beliefs that may tempt you back in the future.
These are the books I return to, recommend to clients and still think about today. They didn’t just give me knowledge. They gave me language, validation, and new ways of seeing the world and myself.
1. Quit Like a Woman – Holly Whitaker
This book changed my life and is an essential read for men and women alike… don’t let the title fool you. This is for everyone. This was the book that first gave me permission to be angry. I was really taken aback when I began to read about the truth behind the marketing of alcohol, how unethical it was and how it was targeted at women specifically to widen the market share and get sales up. I became angry that they’d done this and I was also really cross that I’d fallen for it.
From ladette culture to Mummy Wine Culture, I was a sucker. I had always thought that drinking was being a bit rebellious and it was after reading this book that I realised true rebellion was in going sober. Rebellion is about going against the crowd and not with the masses. It was this anger that then fuelled my determination and the Sober Rebel was born in my mind. The narratives we’ve been fed about what it means to “relax,” to “fit in,” to be a “fun” woman became my fuel.
Holly offers a vision of sobriety that’s expansive and empowering. It was the first book that made sobriety feel like rebellion and a refusal to stay numbed and small. This was the first book that made me want to take up space in sobriety, not shrink in shame. It’s why I’m so bloody proud to say I’m sober. Her voice is unapologetic and she lays out a sharp, political argument too: alcohol isn't just an individual problem, it’s a cultural system designed to keep women numbed, quiet and compliant.
She unpacks the links between alcohol, diet culture, the wellness industry, and capitalism, all while telling her own story of addiction and recovery. It’s part manifesto, part memoir, and it certainly lit a fire in me. Especially if you’ve ever felt like the traditional recovery space doesn’t speak your language, this book says: you’re not broken… you’ve just been marketed to.
It’s not subtle. And that’s exactly why I needed it at the time.
🔍 Perspective shift: I stopped viewing alcohol as a harmless pleasure and started seeing it as something that had quietly hijacked my autonomy. Sobriety wasn’t giving something up. It was taking something back and that felt truly powerful.
Link here - Holly Whitaker - Quit Like A Woman
2. The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober – Catherine Gray
This is the book that held my hand in the early days and also one I looped on audiobook during my sober curious phase, long before I was ready to make a change. Catherine Gray’s voice, both in print and audio, felt like a friend who wasn’t judging me. Someone who’d been where I was, overthinking everything and stuck in the middle ground: not falling apart, but quietly unravelling. I remember driving and listening to it nodding along and wishing that I could do what she had done in walking away from alcohol for good. This wasn’t a book I used in early sobriety, because I came across this years before I actually went sober. But it was a book that started the thought process going in my mind and as a result it has a firm place in my heart.
She writes like someone who knows exactly what it feels like to stand at a party, clutching a tonic water while your inner critic hisses that you’re boring, awkward, or failing. She captures the social disorientation of early sobriety and the internal monologue, the hyperawareness and even the self-comparison. The message that I always came back to was her assuring me that this is normal. Keep going.
Her story isn’t marked by dramatic rock bottoms, though there are powerful moments. Instead, it’s the quieter, more insidious struggles that echoed and that I connected to. It was the emotional hangovers, the rising anxiety and the gradual erosion of confidence. Those blurry boundaries that leave you saying yes when you meant no, staying when you wanted to go. Reading her book was like seeing my own patterns laid out with compassion and clarity.
And the thing I really like about it is that she doesn’t overpromise. She doesn’t sell you the myth that sobriety is always sunshine and smoothies. She admits it can be boring, weird, or lonely at times but gives you hope saying it’s also deeply restorative, empowering and full of subtle joys you had no space to notice before. (Spoiler: her second book is also on my list too that goes into more detail on these subjects).
What I love most is how she gently reframes it all. That even the awkwardness and discomfort are part of becoming you again. That it’s not about missing out, instead it’s about finally opting in.
🔍 Perspective shift: I realised I didn’t have to hit rock bottom to walk away. I just had to want more for myself than being permanently stuck in “fine.” And that “fine” was never as harmless as I’d pretended it was.
Link here - Catherine Gray - The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober
3. Alcohol Explained 1 & 2 – William Porter
I’m cheating a bit here and including these as a ‘two for one’ because you can’t have one without the other. These are the books that turned off the shame switch in my brain around alcohol and got me to think differently.
William Porter doesn’t do melodrama, instead it’s facts and logic. He explains why we crave alcohol, why moderation rarely works, how withdrawal creates anxiety (even in moderate drinkers), and what happens in the brain as dependency builds. It’s matter-of-fact, and that’s what makes it powerful. I love the science and I also loved the brevity of the chapters and that you can just pick it up and put it down. My husband’s ribs were black and blue from me digging him in them and telling him the latest realisation about alcohol as I read in bed. We both learned so much (even if only one of us was reading it…)
Reading these books was like watching the fog lift and I revisit them all the time. The result was that I didn’t feel guilty for drinking the way that I used to, and that’s why I always recommend them because I felt informed. The science validated every confusing cycle I’d been stuck in for years. And the best part? It reminded me I wasn’t broken. I was just stuck in a trap designed to work exactly as it had.
Book 2 dives even deeper into sober identity, relapse patterns and long-term freedom, making this a two-part blueprint for both the “why” and the “what now?” both are amazing. The second book focusses more on practical tools and strategies for sustaining long term sobriety, including changing your mindset around alcohol and building emotional resilience. He goes into key topics of emotional regulation, what to do if you feel bored, how to handle stress and even social triggers. William also touches on how alcohol is so normalised in society and encourages readers to engage in critical thinking around the marketing messages we see. All of this is done in a factual way that is really calm and in no way preachy. I loved it.
🔍 Perspective shift: Alcohol wasn’t solving my problems—it was creating them. And the reason I couldn’t drink “normally” wasn’t about willpower. It was biology. That realisation was a massive relief.
Link here - William Porter - Alcohol Explained
4. Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health – Professor David Nutt
Professor David Nutt is one of the UK’s leading experts in neuropsychopharmacology, and this book cuts through cultural noise with scientific clarity. It’s not emotional at all and it’s not a memoir. Instead it’s educational but sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
This book was another one that got me thinking differently. There is one particular table in it that really left me astounded that showed the true effects of alcohol consumption on life expectancy, compared to other health damaging habits. He compared smoking 20 cigarettes a day and drinking a bottle of wine a day (roughly my consumption) and there was only one year in between them. Both shorten lives on average by 8 and 7 years respectively. This literally made me rethink everything… I’d given up smoking years before because I was so worried about the health risks whilst being blissfully unaware of the true level of risk of my drinking patterns. Don’t get me wrong I knew there was some risk but I didn’t realise it was as comparable as that.
I love anything that gives me science and facts because it helped me see the wine witch off and along with her, any ideas of ‘just the one’. He lays out the impact of alcohol on the brain, the gut, hormone levels, sleep, memory, fertility, and long-term mental health. But what really stuck with me was how alcohol disrupts the body’s natural systems, even in socially acceptable amounts, in ways we’re rarely told.
He also explains how public health messaging around alcohol is influenced by industry, politics, and convenience…not evidence. Once I’d read this, I couldn’t keep telling myself that drinking was “no big deal.”
🔍 Perspective shift: I stopped thinking about alcohol as something I could “manage” and started seeing it as something that was quietly eroding my wellbeing.
Link here - Professor David Nutt - Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health
5. We Are the Luckiest – Laura McKowen
Laura’s book was a different style again. She writes about addiction and recovery with grace, grief and such brutal honesty. This isn’t a step-by-step guide to sobriety but it does help unpack the myth that we’ve all fallen for… that there is such a thing as a normal drinker and how some women feel such shame in admitting they have a problem with alcohol due to this belief that we ‘should be able to handle it’.
She writes about motherhood, shame, secrets, and the slow, messy, gorgeous process of coming home to the person you always were before you started running from everything with alcohol.
What I found most powerful was her perspective on sobriety as a gift not because life becomes perfect, but because you finally feel it all. And in that feeling, you begin to heal. Hence the title, we are the luckiest because we are free of the clutches of alcohol and that is perspective I could wholeheartedly get behind. It’s about being a part of this sober club that changes the statement from “I can’t drink” to “I get to be free”. We really are the luckiest.
🔍 Perspective shift: I stopped seeing sobriety as punishment or restriction. It became a path back to wholeness albeit messy, vulnerable, sacred wholeness.
Link here - Laura McKowen - We Are The Luckiest
6. Sunshine Warm Sober – Catherine Gray
I had to have two books from Catherine in here. This follow-up to Unexpected Joy explores long-term sobriety with wisdom and calm and is a look back at her sober life so far. It especially focusses on years 4 to 7 of sobriety when that feeling of initial novelty fades and the opportunity opens up for even deeper personal growth. She talks about the need to set boundaries, preserve energy, embrace discomfort and how she cultivated enduring self-respect. I loved the way she compared drinking scenarios to the sober ones she now experiences like sliding doors moments and how she explores some of the cultural myths around alcohol (you can’t have too much myth busting in my eyes!).
It’s less about the chaos of quitting and more about what comes after whether that’s grief, travel, celebration, conflict, dating and my favourite, boredom and how to navigate it all sober.
I read this in the first few weeks of going sober and it reminded me that sobriety isn’t a destination, it’s an ongoing practice and a way of living. There’s even a section on the myth of “one day I might drink again,” and how unhelpful that thinking can be. I found that incredibly grounding and that was the point I truly let go of any myth of wanting to back to alcohol. It gave me permission to just settle into this sober life without looking over my shoulder or teasing myself with thoughts of reintroducing it back in.
🔍 Perspective shift: Sobriety became my default and not my project. Not something I had to work on. All of a sudden I wanted to create my own sober identity and to really live it.
7. Glorious Rock Bottom – Bryony Gordon
I absolutely love all of Bryony Gordon’s books. She is unfiltered, messy, hilarious and absolutely devastatingly honest. Glorious Rock Bottom isn’t a neat redemption story instead it’s beautifully raw and even chaotic. It’s full of shame, trauma, and truth. But that’s what makes it an absolute must read.
She writes about addiction, motherhood, mental health, and the internalised pain so many of us carry. She doesn’t wrap it up with a bow. She lets the discomfort be there and that’s what makes this book feel like a real companion for anyone who's ever whispered, “I don’t know how to do this.”
It’s a reminder that relapse doesn’t erase growth. That recovery isn’t linear and that truth-telling is healing. And also that there’s power in not having it all figured out. I loved the dark and gripping nature of it, but I also loved that I felt uplifted and hopeful about a sober life. There’s a lot about Bryony that resonates with me and I think that always helps too.
🔍 Perspective shift: I stopped trying to be the perfect sober person. I gave myself permission to be in process, to be healing and to be human.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes you’ll read a book and it catches you at the right time. Sometimes it is the right book at the wrong time. If you haven’t connected to a book then it’s always worth a re-read. I will say that each of these books met me in a different season and at a different time. Catherine’s books got me to be sober curious and then comforted me through early sobriety when I got it to stick. William’s books helped me see the logic and confirmed a lot of what I suspected about alcohol. David’s book shocked me to my core with the science and Holly’s book was a game changer and one I still talk about with clients today. Some challenged me, some comforted me, some gave me answers and some gave me better questions.
Together, they helped me understand that sobriety wasn’t about restriction, instead it’s about expansion. It’s not the end of freedom. It’s the beginning of clarity, of self-trust, of peace and so I hope you find something that helps you too.
And sometimes, as we all know, all it takes to get started is a sentence in a book that makes you pause and say, “Wait… me too.” I had a lot of those moments…
Happy reading,
Louisa x
✨ Ready to go deeper than just “not drinking”?
Maybe you’ve read all of the quit-lit and are ready to explore the subject of emotional sobriety further. If you’re looking to build long-term resilience in sobriety and not just white-knuckle your way through then my self paced online Sober Resilience course was created with you in mind.
I designed this programme by blending CBT, mindfulness, ACT, and hypnotherapy, drawing from both evidence-based practice and lived experience. The course is structured around 21 transformative lessons, which you can complete in as little as 21 days or take entirely at your own pace.
It’s not about rushing. It’s about creating real, sustainable change from the inside out and I walk you through it.
Here’s what’s included:
Daily videos introducing practical techniques from CBT, mindfulness, and ACT
Downloadable PDFs, exercises, and journal prompts to embed the learning
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Lifetime access to a private Facebook group for peer support, connection and accountability
Topics we cover include:
Emotional regulation and embracing difficult feelings
Problem-solving, assertiveness, and social confidence
Building self-compassion and managing your inner critic
Metacognition, cognitive distortions, and unhelpful thinking
Creating a strong sober identity
Stress relief, anger management, and boredom busting
Acceptance, defusion, mindfulness, and meaningful action
Hypnosis & relaxation recordings:
Tension release relaxation
Enjoying sobriety – a positive mindset
Mountain meditation
Mindfulness of breathing and thoughts
Leaves on a stream
Practice self-compassion
Overcoming social anxiety
Embracing self-love and releasing negativity
Freedom from overthinking hypnosis
“I am safe” anxiety release hypnosis
This course is designed to meet you wherever you are, whether you're newly sober or further along and ready to strengthen your emotional toolkit.
“Louisa's 21 day course is amazing. It is packed full of very useful information, that is well researched, interesting and easy to implement. I cannot recommend it enough. Absolutely life changing. Fantastic. Thank you for sharing you knowledge.” - Sharon
About Louisa…
Louisa is a therapist and clinical hypnotherapist based in the UK, specialising in helping grey area drinkers go sober and to be happy about it. She is an evidence-based practitioner which means the interventions she works with are based on the best available, current, valid and relevant scientific evidence.
She is an accredited practitioner with the GHR & GHSC and a Senior Member & Registered Supervisor with the ACCPH. The ACCPH is an accredited body of psychotherapists and counsellors in the UK and senior member status is only awarded to professionals with significant experience in clinical practice. After suffering with her mental health when she was younger, Louisa decided to qualify and train in this arena to initially help herself and over her subsequent years in practice she has supported hundreds of clients all over the world to change their lives for the better. Alongside her clinic work, she is currently undertaking a Masters in Psychology to further her expertise and also holds student membership of the British Psychological Society (BPS).
If you’d like to find out more head to www.louisaevans.com
I have read all of the books you mentioned however for me, Becoming a Sober Rebel was the book that made me step into my sober journey. 1 year 6 months ago 🙏❤️🥰