Turnabout: New Help for Woman Alcoholic

by Jean Kirkpatrick

Through Kirkpatrick's own Thirteen Empowering Statements of Acceptance, women will undergo a journey of acceptance and awakening, leading them toward a fulfilling and addiction-free existence.

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Not to be confused with Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the American diplomat.

Reviews

[Gayle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have the discipline to be an alcoholic. Which is why I read three or so alcoholic memoirs with such fascination this summer while I was on a diet to lose, among other things, a little bit of a beer belly. (And a chocolate belly. A red meat and white cheddar popcorn belly. Even a kill-the-whole salad bowl kind of belly.) It is utterly amazing, riveting how folks can persevere through hangover after hangover to land themselves in the kind of deep liver and sanity trouble that Kirkpatrick so bravely and lucidly records. (It's astonishing how she recalls such vivid details, writes such believable dialog and voice from that fog. How? She's a real writer, for one, and after getting sober managed to get her doctorate.) The battles of will and shame, disease and desire run through plot twists and revelations of character as any good, compelling story does. Kirkpatrick relates her voyage into self-destruction with such perfect detail, such tension, that her memoir is as much page-turner as cautionary tale. No! Don't get into that car! No! Don't stagger back into work. Stay away from that curving tapered stairwell. Cancel that meeting with the police detective, in which you are still drunk, about your crashed car and the hit and run from three days before. (Thankfully, nobody dies in her memoir except almost her.) When she comes to, crumpled at the bottom of her stairwell: "I began to get myself unwrapped but circulation to all extremities was very bad. My head was splitting, and I was beginning to retch. But I couldn't move. The sour fluid, the taste of something dead or dying. Yes, that's really it. Since I couldn't arise, I tried to calm myself to stop the retching. I felt the bottle close by and tried to drink. It took long efforts and many but finally the retching was stopped and I sank back into oblivion." That was one of the more mild scenes. Being, myself, a person prone to anxieties, funks, overperfections, self-impatiences, rafted with bad memories like everybody else, I find memoirs like hers and Augusten Burrough's a gift: Here's the go-nowhere road you don't want to turn your vehicle down. In fact, don't even drive. Here's the delicious caustic you don't want to throw into your tank and keep topping off. I do understand the compulsion to overeat, overdrink, overwork, overspend, miscope, distract oneself from ennui or temporarily douse the existential angst with whatever numbing habit is handy. One of the reasons I love to read, besides its charming variety of liver-loving escape, is that I can live lives and go places I don't have enough lifetimes to visit, including some I would never want to. Kirkpatrick's book ends with her hard-won take-home lessons she learned and developed to help herself and others. Without even being an alcoholic, a person could find this section instructive, if willing to hang out for the didactic part after Kirpatrick's more riveting section of misadventure. When AA failed her, or vice versa, she developed her own system of rational recovery. I like her thinking: "#2. Negative emotions destroy only myself. #3. Happiness is a habit I will develop. #4. Problems bother me only to the degree I permit them to. #5. I am what I think. #6. Life can be ordinary or it can be great." Good stuff! If more writers wrote more books like this maybe more folks like me would avoid less the literary heinousness of the self-help section.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean's Phd was in Sociology, she was a formidable woman who struggled with alcohol abuse, and spent 3 years in AA. She felt constantly undermined by the patriarchal male society structure, drank again, became sober and founded Women for Sobriety. Jean realized, "women needed esteem builder's rather than the shame they felt in AA. Jean believed women needed to feel empowered. Excellent book, secular in nature.

[madam0wl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree it is dated, but I liked how the voice was a bit like a Nancy Drew book. everything so matter of fact? good perspective into an intelligent woman's descent into alcohol abuse (wow she just kept going & going!) and how she was finally able to pull herself out AND develop an alternative "program" based on her self learnings, that helps other women.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything Jean Kirkpatrick teaches the woman striving to be alcohol-free in this alcohol-dependent society is brilliant. What I found ironic? She discourages "drunkologues" in meetings, but spends more than half this book telling hers. Ugh, I was really tired of her depiction of her active addiction and was grateful when the book "turned about."

Another issue: She could have used an editor in the creative non-fiction sections of the book. The dialogue and description as really stilted -- so stilted that it interfered with my desire to keep reading. There are much better-written drunkologues than hers.

Nonetheless, it's a change-your-life kind of book, and I'll go back to the final chapters over and over, I'm positive!

[Cheryl Van Allen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading this book because it was depressing. My alcoholism didn't reach this type of low, and I'm sorry that Jean had to get to this place, but this book just didn't help me at all.

[Ldooley]

Well I'm only part way through this book - was drawn into it by a vague memory of studying Kirkpatrick in Grad School and the fact that it takes place in Wilkes-Barre Pa. So far it's a fly-on-the-wall view into a woman dying of alcoholism. I think I may need some sunnier beach-type books....

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this for work. It was okay but a bit outdated. The concepts are good though and should be used for men and women.

[Kym Gamble]

Finished for now - will pick up at another time.