Loaded: Women and Addiction

by Jill Talbot

Having an addiction can follow the path of a great relationship that goes sour: there’s the first blush of romance, the seduction (“you know you want to”), and the downward spiral into either obsession or breaking free.

Jill Talbot is no stranger to addiction. Part autobiography, part exposé, Loaded: Women and Addiction weaves Talbot's own battles with addiction with various addiction stories of other women. The result is a captivating, honest look at the allure of addiction—be it to sex, drugs, alcohol, food, adventure, or infidelity—and ultimately its betrayal.

Though addiction can be seductive, if you’re waking up with guilt or making choices that harm others, it’s probably a clue that things are out of control. Throughout Loaded, Talbot's razor-sharp honesty, heartbreaking self-awareness, and resolve to reveal the difficult truth of her relationship with past and present addictions is humbling and sometimes gut-wrenching. In sharing her struggles and her resolve to attain control over her addictions, Talbot speaks her truth while sending a message of hope to women everywhere.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Addiction, Mental Illness, Mental Health

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Jill Talbot is the author of The Last Year: Essays, Winner of the Wandering Aengus Press Editor's Award, The Way We Weren’t: A Memoir (Soft Skull) and a collection of personal essays, Loaded: Women and Addiction (Seal Press). She's the editor of Metawritings: Toward a Theory of Nonfiction (Iowa). Her writing has appeared in journals such as AGNI, Brevity, Colorado Review, Diagram, Gulf Coast, Hotel Amerika, Lit Mag, and The Rumpus. A Distant Town: Stories, winner of the 2020-2021 Jeanne Leiby Award, is available from The Florida Review Press.

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. I cannot understand why anyone would call this book "amazing", which quite a few have in their reviews. It reads like a teenager's blog, it's more stream of conscious than a comprehensive body of work. Most annoyingly, she's constantly asking rhetorical questions. By 35 pages in, I was bored. She'd repeated the same crap over and over again, it is pretty amazing that she can be that repetitive in such a few amount of pages. Especially since most of the repetitive parts are actually, word for word, the same hackneyed phrases and cliches that she said only a page or two before.

I continued reading, partially because it got a bit better after that, mostly because I hate not finishing a book. She evolved from repetitiveness to constantly quoting books, music, and movies. Sometimes multiple quotes on one page. She apparently felt that the quotes were needed to explain her feelings, or a particular situation. I found it annoying, and as a writer, I think she should be able to capture a situation or explain her feelings with HER OWN WORDS, instead of relying on the words of someone else every other paragraph.

As a few other people have commented, this was NOT what I expected from this book at all. The title was EXTREMELY misleading. Why in the world she titled it "Loaded: Women and Addiction" is beyond me. I was expected some introspective study of well...women and addiction! Imagine that. Instead, I feel like half of what I'm reading is someone's personal wankfest, where they desperately try to make themselves seem more complex and interesting than they actually are. Hell, most of it was about her "addiction" to married men, rather than about her problem with alcohol. On top of that, she rarely ever moved on from her own stories to tell the stories of other women, as the description of this book promises.

What annoyed me most about this book was the fact that once in a while, I could see her potential as a writer. I can understand why she has won awards for her poetry, and I have a feeling she would be far better at writing fiction then an autobiographical work. I will admit, I might have even enjoyed the book slightly more if I didn't feel so mislead by the title, if I had not been expecting something entirely different.

[Kelly Rhodes · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a woman in recovery and with a "few" years of sobriety under my belt, I was quite frustrated by the author subtitling this Women and Addiction. I will admit that I was anxiously awaiting to hear the author discuss her recovery or at least come to some relief or closure by the end of the book. My heart ached for the author's daughter who unfortunately took the brunt for her mother's free-spirited lifestyle. As for any structure or consistent timeline throughout the book, I found myself having to re-read certain passages over again because the obscure prose in this book lacks chronological rhythm. I found myself disappointed at the end of the book because the $14.95 and the time I spend on this book were purely wasted. I would disagree with the synopsis that is printed on the backside of this book. The only thing that "gets under my skin" is there is no solution that is ever captured. The author recounts her ridiculous flings that sound very self-absorbed and add no substance to this book. Seriously disappointed especially for someone who claims to have a PHD. Various typos throughout the book as well.
Kelly Rhodes

[Melani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found Talbot's memoir repetitive and lacking in insight. Perhaps because the author never really got or stayed sober, she lacks the necessary perspective on addiction to write about it with any clarity or originality. Her blurred, romanticized, and narcissistic take on her life felt like she was writing with a glass of wine in hand. Editors and friends need to stop encouraging writers to churn out memoirs before they have digested their own experience.

[Jennafhur · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed; I just could not get into it. I read the first 50 or so pages, found myself skim-reading, then fast forwarding ahead to the last 100 pages. Very repetitive, lacking substance, and boring.

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the book would have stories about different women and their various addictions. Sadly, the book was only about the author's addictions, and therefore, rather boring.

[Deborah Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written

[Denise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yuck!! I kept expecting it to get better and it failed!! It reads as a high school or college girls journal tromping through nights of obliteration and sex. It almost seems she gets off on all the misery she inflicted on herself. Where’s the want to change? And she’s a college teacher?? I can’t imagine taking a teacher serious after writing like this for everyone to read. I’d be ashamed and apologetic but you don’t get a sense of that in this book.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way she writes. Really thought provoking and she is just really smart.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I probably should have known by the praise on the back from Wendy McClure that it wouldn't be for me as I couldn't get into I'm Not the New Me either. This book claims to be part expose on women and addiction but really it's a rambling rehab analysis of the author's addictions with no social context and only vague references and half stories about other women she's known who have had addictions in relation to her own story. She writes quite well in places but doesn't give detail where detail is needed and goes into too much detail on things that are dull. By halfway through it just became repetative and I had to force myself to finish it.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. From the title, I thought it would be some sort of analysis of womens' addictions and why they may become addicted to one thing or another. It is actually about the author and her two particular addictions--men and alcohol. The author wallows in her addiction to men and alcohol. Without them, I don't think she would have anything significant to say. She devotes quite a bit of space to quotes from writers she admires--as if their writing examples in her book makes her book any better. I don't think so.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book to read an addiction memoir. The first half of the book was entirely about the men she slept with along the way. About 10% of the book really covered addiction. The rest was mostly her ramblings about wild things she has done with men. The book wasn't awful, but it wasn't great, I've read memoirs with more depth and insight and with storylines that are a bit more interesting. I had hoped for an in depth look at an addict, so if that's what you are looking for, I suggest looking for something else.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Title is misleading. Thought there would be more insight into the world of addiction in this book. It's more or less like a personal diary. The one thing that was a plus to me about this book was the occasional 'life quotes' that made u think twice about them and tempted you to want to write them down..

[Hezugirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had hoped it would have offered more resolution. I think the reality is though, without hope of redemption, there is no resolution. We are slaves to sin (vis. addictions) until we offer ourselves as slaves to good.

[Pandora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was frustrated with this book as the subtitle suggested it would be about the female experience of addiction. Instead, it's a memoir with a melodramatic and boring main character. Talbot is no Courtney Love, so this is just dull.

[Patricia Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book for its brutal honesty
She was right on with love addiction
The pain and loneliness masked by ego and recklessness
Her alcoholism takes second stage
Title a bit deceiving
But I can relate to both
I liked it

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! if only i had the courage to put my past in words for all to read...

[Jen O'leary]

An amazingly written book. Very honest and very loaded.

[Lettie Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but the book had too much repetition.