Using Alcohol to Cope With PTSD – Del’s Naked Life
Del spent years as a Glasgow detective using alcohol to cope with PTSD. Limiting failed, and so did quitting, until he educated himself about alcohol....
“Self-care” means simply “the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health.” But moving past its denotation and into its many—and frequently ambivalent—connotations, self-care becomes a more fraught and considerably less straightforward term. Leigh Stein’s second novel, Self Care, examines the ambiguities inherent in its title concept. Delivering a hilarious and scathing satire on the toxicity and contradictions of contemporary wellness culture and commodified feminism.
This year, I got sober curious (now there’s a wellness catchphrase for you) and started looking at my relationship with alcohol, using Annie Grace’s Naked Mind (2015) technique. I used to believe that alcohol was how I de-stressed, but it was actually causing me a lot of stress. I was never a binge drinker, and I didn’t get hangovers. Wine was a nightly habit and I felt an uncomfortable tug of war between the part of me that wanted to cut back and the part of me that insisted, You deserve a treat.
Curious about what Leigh Stein was reading? Download the first 40 pages for free now!
