Drunk Mom: A Memoir

A best seller in its native Canada, Drunk Mom is a gripping, brutally honest memoir of motherhood in the shadow of alcoholism.

Three years after giving up drinking, Jowita Bydlowska found herself throwing back a glass of champagne like it was ginger ale. It was a special occasion: a party celebrating the birth of her first child. It also marked Bydlowska's immediate, full-blown return to crippling alcoholism.

In the gritty and sometimes grimly comic tradition of the best-selling memoirs Lit by Mary Karr and Smashed by Koren Zailckas, Drunk Mom is Bydlowska's account of the ways substance abuse took control of her life - the binges and blackouts, the humiliations, the extraordinary risk-taking - as well as her fight toward recovery as a young mother. This courageous memoir brilliantly shines a light on the twisted logic of an addicted mind and the powerful, transformative love of one's child. Ultimately, it gives hope, especially to those struggling in the same way.